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LIBRARY OF COi^GRESS 




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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LYRICS 



SPAIN AND ERIN 



7 

EDWARD lIATURm, 

AUTHOR OF "MONTEZUMA," "EVA," ETC., ETC. 



1883 



-^'^WASH^^ 




X 



,■»', 



BOSTON: 
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. 

nt p (- f (' T , 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 

EDWARD MATURIN, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 



Craighead, Printer and Stereotuper. 
112 Ftdton ttreet, New York. 



MISS HAINES, 

TWENTIETH STREET, 



NEW Y o R ; 



Madam, 

Receive my thanks for your acceptance of the following 
pages. Their demerits may, in the eyes of our common friends, 
be atoned by the privilege of your name ; which, though it 
guarantee not the excellence of the work, affords yet ample 
testimony to the kindness of your heart. 

I have the honor to be. 
Madam, 

Your obedient servant, 

The Author. 
J^ew York, Oct., 1850. 



TO THE READER. 

I HAVE nothing to say in the shape of Preface ; nor, had 
I, do I think the Public would trouble itself therewith. 
They are generally masses of egotism, or meant as 
palliatives for faults, were better left to the ingenuity 
of the Reader, a function he is seldom slow in exercising. 
For the former I have no personalities to communicate, and 
for the latter, I am as unwilling to deprecate censure, if 
deserved, as to solicit unmerited praise. 

It may serve to propitiate Critics, soi disant and otherwise, 
to inform them that the majority of the volume has 
undergone what may be termed the cobweb-prolation of 
Horace, the glorious Novennium of shelf and silence. 



CONTENTS 



SPANISH BALLADS 



Page 



The Destruction of Numantia, 

Roderick after the Battle, 

Lament of Roderick in the Garden 

Bernardo's Father, 

Bernardo del Carpio to his Army, 

The Vengeance of Mudarraz, 

The Banner of the Cid, 

The Foray of the Cid, . 

Bermudez' Appeal to the Sons-in-Law of the Cid on the 

point of Flight, 
The Cid's Farewell, 
The Cid's Pennon, 
Babieca, .... 
Alphonzo's Oath, 
The Burial of the Cid, . 
Address of Count Fernan Gonzalez previous to battle 

with the Moors, ...... 

Florida leaves her Father's House at Night, embarking in 

the Galley of her Lover, Dnardos, . 
King Sebastian dies in Battle, 
Vellido Dolfos' Treason, 
Boabdil's Lament, ....... 

Boabdil's Farewell, ....... 



1 

5 

10 
IG 
19 
23 
27 
31 

35 
37 
39 
43 

47 
51 

53 

57 
GO 
63 
67 
70 



f • r» N 1 F, N I !=; 



Pagt 
LEGENDS AN'I) SITF.USTITIONS OF IRELAND. 

The Enchanted Ring, . .77 
Eileen Aroon, . . 114 
The Spirit-Bridegroom. ... 140 
The Death- Kiss, 150 

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 

Belshazzar, . . • .171 

The Sea, 183 

The Woods, 19^ 

Napoleon, .....-• 204 



SPANISH BALLADS 



THE DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA. 

[The Spanish Chronicler says : "The invasion of the French is so fresh 
in the memory, tbat it is sufficient to say, the inhabitants of Zaragossa 
imitated the desperate example of Numantia against Scipio." 

Monti, in his tragedy of Caio Gracco, alludes thus to Scipio, and the 
bitter extremities of want and suffering experienced by the Numantians : 
"Rememb'rest thou not the fell work of the destroyer (Scipio), and the 
famine of Numantia, which blackened and cursed our name throughout 
the world?"] 

With haughty Rome's unconquered band, that ne'er 
knew flight or fear, 

To desolate Iberia's land with fire, and sword, and spear, 

The conqueror of Carthage goes, in Afric's field re- 
nowned. 

To win for Rome, Numantia, or raze her to the ground. 
1 



2 SPANISH BALLADS. 

No sooner, then, his warrior-men, with sword and 

buckler bright, 
In war-array, at break of day, in ghttering armor dight, 
Were marshalled on the grassy plain by Darro's golden 

water,* 
Than Scipio thus aroused his men to deeds of blood 

and slaughter : 

" Soldiers ! the banners that ye bear are emblems of the 

Day; 
Rome's haughty eagle flies where'er is felt its genial 

ray- 
May the shouts of Roman triumph sustain her as she 

flies. 
To make her bright pavilion in the depths of yonder 

skies ! 

"Remember, that to-day ye fight to gain a brighter 

name 
Than e'er was set by Glory yet upon the scroll of 

Fame ! 
Remember, that the deeds of war shall hve to future 

years ; 



* This river (an abbreviation of the Spanish Dk oro) derives its name 
from the tradition that its sands were golden. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 3 

The victor ! the triumphal car ! the captive chained in 
tears !" 

Nor heard these men their leader, then, impatient for 

the fray ; 
For eager cries did rend the skies, and cleave the vault 

of day : 
" To arras ! to arms !" from left to right, from right to 

left, they cry — 
The spear upon the shield they smite, and raise their 

banners high* 

The Numantine in serried line, as he looks from his 

guarded tower. 
And sees advance with targe and lance the might of 

Roman power. 
Resolves to make the tented field the proud Numan- 

tian's grave. 
Ere Spain to Roman sword should yield, or crouch as 

Roman slave ! 

No bread they have for famished life within those 

'leaguered walls ; 
She bares her breast, the fearless wife, and 'fore her 

husband falls ; 
She quails not at the naked knife, and with her babe, 

she prays — 



4 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Death from the arm which guarded her from wrong in 
other days. 

They build a blazing fire, the while, and in their 

strong despair, 
Resolve to make that flame the pile of all that's rich 

and fair ; 
In low, but sternest voice they cry, that pale but iron 

band : 
"That day shall rather see them die, than Spain a 

conquered land !" 

Th' exulting Romans, heedless then of what was done 
or said 

Amid that ghastly troop of men, resolved, and un- 
dismayed : 

" To arms ! to arms !" from left to right, from right to 
left, they cry ; 

The spear upon the shield they smite, and raise their 
banners high. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 



RODERICK AFTER THE BATTLE. 

The painted bird forgets his lay, and folds his wings in 

rest, 
Faded the amber light of day, and gloom is in the 

West ; 
The earth in solemn silence hears the murmur of the 

wave, 
As its watery tribute on it bears, to make the sea its 



Dimly shines the evening star, like the fair bride of 

night. 
Sailing in her pearly car o'er waves of misty light ; 
And scarce, I ween, the moon is seen through rack and 

drifting cloud, 
For the storm hath wrapped*the midnight sky in a pale 

and dismal shroud. 



And who is he, o'er mount and vale, who wends his 
weary way — 

Worn his weeds, his cheek is pale, and hair in dis- 
array ? 



6 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Rodrigo, from the bloody plain of Jerez takes his flight, 
To shun the heaps of his thousands slain — for a King a 
Sony sight ! 

And he hath ta'en a sad disguise on that drear and 

lonely way — 
Weeds that a Palmer would not prize, so torn and bare 

are they ; 
No jewelled crown upon his head — no sceptre doth he 

hold ; 
But poor and tattered robes instead of purple and of 

gold. 

What soldier now could recognise the King he once 

adored ? 
Oh! who could think that tattered guise concealed a 

kingly sword ? 
Where are the glittering gems that shone in victory's 

bright day — 
Gems that the Goths themselves had won from foes as 

strong as they ? 

Many a dint his armor bears, and many a crimson 

stain 
Upon its polished face appears — the blood of Moorish 

slain : • 



SPANISH BALLADS. 7 

With blood and dust his face was smeared — his head in 

thought was bent ; 
The triumph of that luckless day was the reed on which 

he leant ! 

Through vale and plain, with slackened rein, Oreha bears 

him on ; 
His courser true, that weary day, master and steed 

alone ! 
With weary hmb and lightless eye, with faint and 

drooping head, 
Orelia trod the midnight-way, unknowing where it led. 

Sad images the horseman's eye at every step assail, 
Anon he hears the Moorish ery, anon the Christian wail ; 
He dares not look to Heaven, for there God speaks in 

every tone ; 
He dares not look to earth — alas ! that earth is not his 

own ! 

That land is now another's — and he has nor crown 

nor throne ; 
He throws with pride the tear aside, and stifles every 

groan. 
" Wo ! wo betide the hour," he cried, " I first felt 

passion's fires — 
Wo worth the clay T fell a prey to love's accurst desires! 



8 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" 'Twas not the part of Gothic King his people to 

bewray 
For the deadly wile of woman's smile, or her eyes' 

deceitful ray. 
Where is my kingdom's glory gone, and where my 

people's trust ? 
Where are my sceptre and my throne ? All trampled 

to the dust ! 



" And Cava ! — thou fair enemy ; thou Helena of Spain ! 
Oh would to God that I were blind ere I had worn thy 

chain ; 
But in thy beauty slept the fire the flint within it bears ; 
Our luckless passion now, alas ! can scarce be quenched 

by teaii^ 

"Would, Julian, that thy dagger's point — foul traitor 

that thou art ! — 
Had found its way through harness-joint, and pierced my 

very heart ! 
The swarthy hordes of Afric's land o'erspread our hills 

and plains — 
I w^ould the fragment of this brand could rend thy 

traitor's veins !" 



SPAx\ISH BALLADS. 9 

He bowed his head upon his breast — his words were low 

and faint — 
His hps in agony were prest to the image of his saint ;* 
The weary steed to earth fell dead! The knight full 

sore he weeps — 
Upon the sward he makes his bed, and vigil sad he 

keeps. 

And ever from his hps there fell a prayer for conquered 

Spain, 
That God would smite the Infidel, and break his 

country's chain ; 
And oft amid the hng'ring night he'd gaze upon his 

steed. 
Dream o'er again the Moorish fight, and Orelia's arrowy 



* The Goths were Christians. — Vide Sismondi's " Uistoire du Midi.'' 



1* 



10 SPANISH BALLADS. 



LAMENT OF RODERICK IN THE GARDEN. 

Amid the garden's clust'ring beds, where rose and lily 

pale 
Shroud, tremblingly, their dewy heads, 'neath ev'ning's 

dusky veil. 
The throneless King Rodrigo strays, while thought with 

magic wand 
Conjures bright dreams of other days, when the Goth 

ruled o'er the land. 

The sparkle of the fountain bright falls darkly on his 

eye; 
The murmur of its meteor-flight, on his heart sank 

heavily ; 
The rose hath lost her damask hue — all withered is her 

leaf; 
And the lily, 'tis the emblem true, of Rod'rick's pallid 

grief. 

Bright hues, in clusters, 'round were spread to glad the 

gazer's eye ; 
Nature's bright hand around had shed a flowered 

galaxy ; 



SPANISH BALLADS. H 

But evening waved her shadowy wand o'er every 

flow'ret's breast, 
And lulled, as by a mother's hand, they closed their 

leaves in rest. 

His hurried step betrayed the thought, repentance* 

keenest pang ; 
In solitude, the Goth had sought to blunt her poisoned 

fang ;— 
He leaned in sadness 'gainst a tree, its boughs of leaves 

were bare. 
And with a broken \'oice spake he, in accents of 

despair. 

" Lo ! every plague beneath the heaven, within this 

breast hath found 
Its darkened home, by vengeance given, to rend each 

gaping wound ; 
The elements themselves conspire, for water dims the 

eye; 
Within my breast's a raging fire, and air begets the 



" The earth alone hath mercy shown — her terrors are 

concealed, 
For in the tomb, that darkened home, Life's fountains 

are congealed ; 



12 SPANISH BALLADS. 

And with meteor-speed the hour of Fate comes upon 

friend and foe, 
And stilled is the burning pulse of Hate, in icy realms 

below. 

" These odors sweet, that float and stray, as they heaven- 
ward take their flight. 

Like incense laid by dying Day on the altar of the 
Night, 

Are linked with tearful memory of hours for ever fled ; 

Those flowers have grown beneath thine eye, and now, 
aLas ! they're dead I 

" In every faded rose, I seek that bright and blushing 

bloom. 
That, Cava, once adorned thy cheek, dark signet of my 

doom ! 
And vainly strive in each to trace the memory of thee, 
Whose image Time shall ne'er erase, how long soe'er it 

be. 

"Hard as the mountain-rock, the tree whose trunk 

supports me now ; 
Silent its leafy melody, and withered every bough ; 
But, Cava, harder far art thou than rock or aged tree — - 
The very life-blood of this heart hath been, traitress, 

shed by thee ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 13 



BERNARDO DEL CARPIO. 

Alphonzo sate in his castle-hall, his knights on either 

hand ; 
His warriors and nobles all held each his naked brand : 
A stern and haughty suitor stood before the monarch's 

throne, 
And, while his brow was flushed with blood, 'twas thus 

the knight spake on : — 

" Within the walls of yonder tower in chains my father 

lies ; 
Thou'st shut the sunny day for aye in darkness on his 

eyes ; 
Thou'st palsied strength of heart and limb by the weight 

of the deadly chain ; 
And the youth, that was hght and joy to him, hath 

closed in gloom and pain ! 

" Senseless we deem the stones that guard the captive's 

dungeon deep ; 
Pity, within their bosoms hard, is locked in icy sleep ; — 
And yet upon these senseless stones grief writes her 

sacred sign ; 



14 SPANISH BALLADS. 

They hear my father's sighs and groans — Foul tyrant ! 
where are thine ? 

" The bloom of youth was on his brow — its light was in 

his eye ; 
But both, alas ! are faded now, by long captivity : 
Bright and flowing was his hair, hke noon-day's golden 

hght ; 
But Time hath set his signet there, and Age hath made 

them white. 

" The blood that warms my father's veins, Alphonzo 

holds in scorn ; 
The flesh that moulders in his chains, he deems it lowly 

born ; 
Yet 'twas that foul and worthless blood that nerved 

Bernardo's heart, 
When in the blaze of fight he stood, and dared the 

Frankish dart. 

" When Charlemagne his steel-clad horde marched 

proudly through thy realm, 
Who was the first to draw the sword, and who to brace 

the helm ? 
Bernardo boldly took the field, with Leon's knightly band, 
Seized his broad and burnished shield, and bared his 

battle-brand. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 16 

" When civil discord's lawless rage swept through the 

realm of Spain, 
Dyed deep with blood her virgin page, and forged thy 

country's chain, — 
Upon the instant, out there flew, from every slumbering 

sheath. 
Swords, that, baptized in life's warm dew, were stained 

with its last breath. 

" I am thy sister's son, false king ! Bernardo's blood is 

thine ! 
It were a foul and shameless thing that Ejng Alphonzo's 

line 
Should bear upon his 'scutcheon bright the bastard's 

lowly stain — 
The son demands the father's right, or vengeance upon 

Spain ! 

"ISTay, flush not thus thy haughty brow — I fear nor 

threat nor death ! 
Though armed men be 'round thee now, I tell thee in 

thy teeth — 
The frozen heart and the whitened head of the old man 

now in chains 
Shall, traitor ! strew thy path with dead, and the blood 

of Castilian veins !" 



SPANISH BALLADS, 



BERNARDO S FATHER. 

" Ere yet the beard of manhood's growth liad left its 

darkened track, 
Thou swor'st, false king ! a perjured oath, to give my 

father back ; — 
To free my prisoned sire for aye from dungeon and from 

chain ; 
Yet, though I sue thee day on day, my hopes, my 

prayers, are vain ! 

" Thy curse was on his bridal-hour, when he thy sister 
w^ed ; 

The convent was thy sister's dower ; the cell his bridal- 
bed : 

Nor convent-walls nor dungeon-chains can alter nature's 
line — 

The blood that warms Bernardo's veins is, traitor ! also 
thine ! 

" Say, he was rebel to the throne ; — the crime he's paid 

with years ; 
His pillow 's now the dungeon-stone, his bread thou'st 

steeped with tears ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. l7 

But no ! not treason to thy land did deadly vengeance 

move, 
And kindle hate's undying brand — ''Twas that he dared 

to love! 

" Alphonzo ! freedom hast thou sworn my sire, upon thy 
sword — 

Let not thy subjects hold in scorn a knight's — a mo- 
narch's word ; 

For never yet was falsehood known her slimy path to 
trace. 

Where stood the monarch's sacred throne, or flush a 
soldier's face ! 

"Bernardo men 'a coward' call — 'tis false as hell the 

word ; 
The champion of Koncesvalles ne'er feared to draw his 

sword. 
I dare the liars ! By the rood ! Bernardo 's true and leal. 
To write the falsehood in the blood of any in Castile ! 

" My sire for thee in bloody strife hath many a battle won ; 
For thee, false king ! Bernardo's life hath many a peril 

run. 
Shame ! shame upon thy guerdon foul ! my ftither hast 

thou ta'en — 



18 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Tremble, traitor ! for by my soul, this blade thy heart 
shall drain ! 

" Ten thousand curses on the sword that fought for thee 

and thine ! 
Curst be the breath that gave the word to Spain's 

embattled hne ! 
The brand of craven 's on my brow — its curse is on my 

heart, 
To leave a sire in dungeon low, yet face Rfoeman's dart !" 

Then spake Alphonze : — " A monarch's faith is time as 

lover's token : 
Sir knight, fear not thy father's death, his chain shall 

soon be broken ; 
Or ere to-morrow's sun shall rise o'er steeple, hill, and 

tower. 
The old man's form shall glad thine eyes, free from 

Alphonzo's power." 

The king his solemn vow he kept, which he had made 

that day ; 
Deceit within his bosom slept, to murder and betray : 
His bloody 'best the soldiers bear to the dungeon lone 

and drear — 
The trembling old man's eyes they tear from their dull 

and lightless sphere. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 19 



BERNARDO DEL CARPIO TO HIS ARMY. 

The stoutest lances at his side that ever fought for 
Spain, 

Bernardo's raUied far and wide 'gainst haughty Charle- 
magne ; 

In iron phalanx on they go, in rest is every lance ; — 

Their leader is Del Carpio — their enemy is France ! 

Alphonso,' traitor to his throne, hath sought for Frankish 

aid, 
And France hath to his summons flown, and bared her 

every blade ; 
And foul the price the king hath paid for the hire of 

Frankman's blood : 
His sires' soil he hath betrayed — the soil whereon they 

stood ! 

Weary with march the glittering train, ere the bright 

sun goes down, 
Halt in the middle of a plain two leagues from Leon's 

town ; 
Bernardo raised his visor up, surveyed his army then, 



20 SPANISH BALLADS. 

And while he spake, no sound there brake from that line 
of steel-clad men. 

" Sons of Leon ! ye who prize a warrior's name and 

glory, 
"Whose valiant deeds of high emprise shall live in 

Spanish story — 
Warriors ! ye, whose every vein with noblest blood is 

fed. 
Shall Leon wear the Frankman's chain, or fear her blood 

to shed ? 

" Within yon' band no craven hearts palsy the swords 
ye bear ; 

Your breasts defy the Frankish darts — then where- 
fore should ye fear ? 

The strife is for our king and throne — then onward : 
God looks down ! 

With ye I stake my life upon the honor of the crown ! 

" The land your Christian fathers swayed for many a 

year of old. 
Shall it to France be now betrayed, through fear, or 

love of gold ? 
Your lives are on this mighty stake as heroes brave and 

leal: 



SPANISH BALLADS. 21 

Rise, Leonese ! your fetters break, nor fear the Frankisli 
steel ! 

" Will ye consent that stranger blood should forge the 

griding chain — 
That France should pour- old Leon's blood o'er Leon's 

blooming plain — 
That to-morrow's sun should rise upon your sons in 

bondage led ? 
This sacred soil to France a spoil, for which our fathers 

bled? 

" Shall your bucklers, broad and bright, forget the sign 

they bear 
Blazoned on their breasts of might — The Lion in his 

lair? 
Shall the haughty Lion yield his place to the pallid 

fieur de lis ? 
Shall Leon's sons her arms erase for Frankish blazonry ? 

" For many a year this land so fair in peace your fathers 

swayed ; 
Freedom's foundations with their blood and valor have 

they laid ; 
Stout Leonese ! it cannot be, that the terrors of a day 
Should blot from every memory their toils and blood 

awav ! 



22 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" Where are those craven hearts that fear to bite the 
ground in death ? 

Remember, Leon's banners ne'er were fanned by cow- 
ard's breath ! 

We ask not of them sword or lance ; we ask alone the 
brave, 

To stem the iron-tide of France, or make old Spain their 
grave !" 

He vaulted on his steed, and plunged the rowels in his 

side, 
And dashed away with fiery speed, as shafts from bowmen 

glide ; 
" Leal knights and true ! your coursers spur !" his voice 

rose on the breeze, 
" Shall the Lion quail before the cur ? 'Fore France the 

Leonese ?" 



PANI6H BALLADS. 23 



THE VENGEANCE OF MUDARRAZ. 

Count Gonzalez Cordova leaves, and straight to Salas 
goes; 

Within that fortress strong he grieves for years of count- 
less woes, 

With pain he ransacks mem'ry's stores, revives his 
■wrongs afresh, 

And rends again Time's half-closed sores,* as pincers tear 
the flesh. 

" Oh ! blasted trunk ; of every leaf bare and decayed 

art thou ! 
O'er me hath passed the storm of grief, as the tempest 

strips the bough ; 
There's not a single blossom left to mark where once it 

stood, 
Alike of bough and foliage 'reft: a curse is on my 

blood ? 

" I once had seven noble sons ; — but they are dead and 
gone — 

* " The flesh will follow where the pincers tear."— Young's ''Revenge." 



24 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Curst be the hand that laid them low, and left me here 

alone ! 
There's one — but one is left me yet ; I would he too 

were dead ; 
His craven-falchion ne'er he'll wet, nor a foeman's blood 

he'll shed. 

" For bastard blood his veins doth warm ; — his is the 

coward's part ; 
Nor knightly strength is in his arm, nor valor in his 

heart ; 
E'en though his hoary sire were dead, no loyal son I 

have 
A prayer to say, a tear to shed, upon my lonely grave ! 

" My murdered sons ! how oft ye rise in the midnight 

lone and deep, 
"When your aged father's sleepless eyes their sorrowing 

vigils keep ; 
Anon I seem to clasp each form; — anon it takes its 

flight ! 
Your necks, with life-blood dripping warm, assail my 

aching sight !" 

" Can the weary captive break his chain ? Can he his 
wrongs redeem ? 



SPANISH BALLADS. 25 

Can he revenge the bitter pain that shades Life's holy- 
stream ? 

No ! no, my sons ! The God who gave ye hfe will yet 
atone 

Your wrongs in yom- foeman's bloody grave ; — ^your 
death — your dying groan. 

" Would God I'd died in Moorish land ; for now, were 

past my pain — 
They would have used the naked brand, but never bound 

the chain ; 
But now I stand amid mine own ; — shame on their 

Christian faith ! 
Christians ! what mercy have they shown ?^a slow and 

painful death !" 

Such sad and waihng accents rise from the captive in 

despair ; 
He presses now his streaming eyes — anon he rends his 

hair ; 
When, on a sudden, he descries a knight in full career, 
'Tis a Moorish knight ! his pennon flies, and glanceth 

bright his spear — 

He sees the dim and half-orbed moon upon his rounded 
shield 

2 



26 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Pillowed on piles of fleecy clouds ; the ground, its azure 

field, 
And, wrought in letters of pure gold, upon its breast 

appears — 
*■'' Lost one! I go to find thee, thd' I brave a thousand 

spears /" 

Upon his lance a streamer bright spreads far its snowy- 
sheen ; 

Inscribed upon a ground of white, it bears a cross of 
green ; 

While dangles from his saddle-bow a head that drips 
with blood, — 

It is the head of a Christian foe, who hath his lance 
withstood. 

Still on the knight, in full career, presseth with breathless 

speed. 
In rest he holds his slanted spear, and spurs his gallant 

steed ; 
At the dungeon-grate he quickly reins, and to his father 

cries: 
" Sire ! here is vengeance for thy chains, and the tears 

that dim thine eyes !" 

" Here^ father ! is Velasquez' head — thy seven sons he 
slew — 



SPANISH BALLADS. 2*7 

I swore that I'd avenge the dead, though I the blow 

should rue — 
/ am thy bastard son, my Lord ! Revenge thou did'st 

not deem, 
Could ever gild the bastard's sword, or his heart's 

polluted stream !" 



THE BANNER OF THE CID. 

Within San Pedro's blessed walls the Cid in prayer is bent, 
Midnight in solemn silence falls o'er ev'ry monument ; 
And dimly doth the waning hght fall on the Champion 

brave. 
So dim, the warrior seems a sprite fresh risen from the 

grave ! 

The suppliant still kneels in prayer : the carved saints 
they stand 

Like spectres wrought in silent air, from a far and 
shadowy land ; 

The holy cross before him stands, the Saviour's bleeding- 
brow. 



28 SPANISH BALLADS. 

While the kneeling knight with clasped hand renews 
his holy vow ! 

The Cid hath chosen well his part, in humble prayer to 

kneel, 
For God doth better shield the heart in war, than mail 

of steel ; 
He, who in battle's peril bears the Christian's holy faith, 
Tho' thousands be his foes, ne'er fears to die a soldier's 

death ! 

Now swells the organ's solemn peal — bends ev'ry casque 

and cowl, 
The Abbot and the monks they kneel and speed the 

parting soul — 
Upon the cross their eyes they bend, — full many a bead 

they tell. 
That the Cid their banner may defend against the 

Infidel. 

Bivar then raised the banner high before that kneeling 

line, 
While solemnly was bent each eye on the Sa^^our's holy 

sign; 
He kissed the banner's drooping fold that round him 

fell in shade, 



SPANISH BALLADS. 29 

Undid his mantle's clasp of gold, and kneeling, thus he 
prayed ! 

" Cross of God ! that o'er us waves, bright emblem of 

our faith ! 
Thy shadow rest upon our graves, and fan our dying 

breath ; 
Thy symbol soothe the closing lid, and dry death's icy 

tear, 
Thy sacred fold enwrap the cold upon the warrior's bier ! 

" Blest banner of my country, come ! the trump of 

battle calls — 
The heart of knighthood be thine home ! Thy shrine, 

these sainted walls ; 
Castilian bands enfold thee now, that Death alone can 

sever — 
Upon my soul there lies a vow, to die or guard thee 

ever ! 

" Alphonso's ear hath been betrayed by traitors false and 

foul, 
Their lying breath may stain my blade, but cannot touch 

my soul ! 
When knights and vassals thus are paid for the blood 

that they have shed, 



30 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Who would worship glory's shade, or make her field his 
bed? 

" King ! thou hast heard the Syren sing — there's death 

in every tone, 
'Tis the sweep of the vulture's sable wing that echoes 

Death's last groan ; 
Thou'st banished me from country — home — from all I 

love below — 
No garlands e'er shall deck my tomb, nor laurel weave 

my brow ! 

" Now God forefend ! that luckless hours my country 

should befall. 
That a foeman's flag should man her towers — a foeman's 

sword her wall ! 
May conquest never cease to tread through Spain's 

heroic land ; 
May the casque be braced to every head, and the 

sword on every hand ! 

" I love thee, Spain ! Dear land, farewell ! I dare not 

disobey — 
To foes, for thee, my blood I'd sell ! For thee, myself 

would slay ! 
Before God's holy men I swear, whom kneeling round I 



SPANISH BALLADS. 31 

In battle, all I do or dare, dear Spain, shall be for 
thee !" 

Then pealed " Te Deiim " through the shrine — the monks 

the beads they told. 
The Abbot marked the holy sign upon the banner's fold. 
The Cid then took the banner back with proad and 

flashing eye. 
And forth on Babieca rode — to conquer or to die ! 



THE FORAY OF THE CID. 

Five hundred knights of old Castille have followed 

De Bivar 
To brave with him, through woe and weal, the perils of 

the war ; — 
They halted in a spacious plain for meal and midday rest, 
When the Cid, he checked his courser's rein, and thus 

his host addressed — 

" Brave knights and soldiers ! now's the day, and now 
the hour hath come : 



32 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Anon ye'll see the Crescent play, and hear the Moorish 

druDQ ! 
Down from yon' mountains let them pour, as foams the 

fierce cascade : 
Fear not ! / am El Campeador ! Behold Tizona's blade ! 

" Ye are Hidalgos ! Shall your blood be water for their 

spears ? 
Shall Moorish dogs rend ye for food as the kite his 

carrion tears ? 
Shall every brow that flusheth now with soldiers' honest 

hate 
Turn pale with fear, soon as ye hear* the Moor is at the 

gate ? 

" No, by my soul ! Hidalgos, no ! Pride flusheth every 

cheek 
f Deeply as sunset stains the snow upon the Alpine 

peak ! 
Remember, knights, we banished are from the dear land 

of Spain, 
But bear in mind that bold Bivar will soon wash out the 

stain ! 



* What, ho— Alonzc ! The Moor is at the gate \—The Rovcnge. 
t The blush of earth embracing with her heaven.— JJ/an/rerf. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 33 

" I wear a coi'slet, but the foe can pierce it through and 

through ; 
Will ye refuse, Hidalgos — no ! — to be my armor, too ? 
With honor such as yours, and swords to shield Rodrigo's 

heart, 
I challenge Afric's fiery hordes — I spurn the Moorish 

dart !" 

He said, and sheathed his g-iant-blade — The marching 

word was given — 
The banners played — the trumpets brayed — their echoes 

rose to Heaven — 
On — on in gorgeous train they ride with armed breast 

and heel ; 
In iron phalanx side by side — The Champions of 

Castille ! 

Now far and wide through Moorish land, like a tempest 

fierce, they broke. 
The Moslem quailed before his brand, and bowed beneath 

his yoke ! 
The brightness of the Crescent wanes — broken the 

scymitar ! 
Who leads the Moorish king in chains ? — Rodrigo de 

Bivar ! 



34 SPANISH BALLADS. 

But Conquest piles her golden store within Valencia's 

walls, 
The banners of El Carapeador bedeck her lonely halls ! 
Two hundred steeds ; an hundred Moors — the bravest in 

the land, 
Stand ranged before Rodrigo's doors, and wait the Cid's 

command ! 

King, slaves and steeds the Cid hath sent as tribute from 

his sword 
(For though he fought in banishment, Alphonse was still 

his Lord) ; 
Each slave, he bears an iron key — the barbs wear 

jewelled reins, 
And the glowing blood of Araby swells high within 

theiir veins ! 



S P A N I f; FT R A I. L A D S , 35 



BERMUDEZ' APPEAL TO THE SONS-IN-LAW 
OF THE CID ON THE POINT OF FLIGHT. 

" Draw, Hidalgos ! draw your swords ! On liigh the 

red cross wave ! 
Ere yield an inch to Afric's hordes, be the battle-field 

your grave ! 
Plunge deep the spear — Slack not the rein — ■* Let the 

hand toil round the spear ! 
And when Glory comes to count her slain, let her pile 

her altar here ! 

" What ! at the sight of a turban-fold will the hearts of 

Christians quail ? 
What are their purple, gems and gold, to the stout old 

Spanish mail ? 
A darker brand Us brow shall bear, than first was 

stamped on Cain, 
Whose craven cheek shall pale with fear, or recreant 

prove to Spain. 

" Hidalgo-blood in every vein, yet nerveless every brand ! 

* This expression is borrowed from Homer 



86 SPANISH BALLADS. 

BoAV, Slaves! Bow clown! The Moorisli chain is 

forged for every hand ! 
Fathers were heroes, once, to fame ; but now the sons yt 

have 
Would blush to own a father's name, or tread a father's 

grave ! 

*' Ye cravens, turn ! Wheel every steed ! Back to 

Valencia ! back ! 
Be the lightning-wing your courser's speed ; its fury be 

their track : 
If scymitar and turban fright Ilidalgo and Alcayde, 
By heaven ! for every Spanish knight I'd choose a 

Spanish maid ! 

"The Cid his true and stalwart sword to both of ye 

bequeathed ; 
Full many a vein that blade must drain, ere well it can 

be sheathed ; 
Ye say ye are Hidalgos — Shame ! I swear by Pedro's 

shrine 
I'd blush to bear your father's name an ye were sons of 

mine ! 

" 'Mid dames and gentles well ye move, in tourney or in 
dance ; 



SPANISH BALLADS. 37 

Better ye suit the bowers of love than harness, targe, or 

lance : 
Wipe out that deep and burning stain would dim your 

warrior-crown ; 
Forward ! and trample to the plain yon' dogs of false 

Mahoun." 



Should the God of battles lay me low in the field 

whereto I'm bound, 
Should I fall beneath the Moorish foe, and bite, in death, 

the ground ; 
Xiraena ! let thy husband's grave be in San Pedro's 

shrine — 
Above me let no banner wave, save Jesus' holy sign ! 

" I charge thee let no woman's tear bewail thy husband 

dead ; 
Let warrior-hands, upon the bier, compose my pillowed 

head ; 
I would not have my soldiers weep upon their leader's 

pall. 



:^« SPANISH BALLADS. 

Nor grief her lightless vigil keep, where'er I chance to 
fall! 

" As knight of Christ, I charge thee yet, should sorrow 

dim thy hd, 
Let not the hordes of Mahomet see thee weeping for the 

Cid; ' 
I charge thee, further, by the sword Bivar in battle 

wore, 
Let it not own a second Lord, or fell another Moor ! 

" It may be that my gallant steed, with loose and 

dano;linoj rein 
(True as e'er served a knight at need, or trod the soil of 

Spain), 
May stand without his master's gate, with low and 

drooping head, 
And the empty saddle where I sat, will tell thee — I am 

dead ! 

" Open the gate, as though I yet bestrode my courser 

brave, 
And pr'ythee let his bones be laid within his master's 

grave ; 
For they who've fought in bloody field should still be 

one in death — 



SPANISH BALLADS. 89 

The spear should He upon the shield, and the sword 
within its sheath. 

" Soon as the parting soul is sped, and leaves to earth 

her spoil, 
Ximena, thou anoint my head with myrrh and holy 

oil ; 
Then buckle harness on my breast, and helmet on my 

head. 
And leave Bivar to take his rest among Spain's gallant 

dead !" 



Bivar and his three hundred knights, Hidalgos brave of 
Spain, 

Look down from Alcozero's heights, upon the battle- 
plain ; 

The turbaned Moslems press and throng around on 
every side. 

Like a river of steel that rolls along in the might of its 
wintry tide. 



40 SPANISH BALLADS. 

The steeds, they neigh, the banners play ! Flasheth the 

polished steel ! 
The scymitar is bared for war ! The gongs and trumpets 

peal ! 
The Moslem gazeth on the tower with a wild and fearful 

glare ;— 
The Christians dare not face that power, nor brave the 

thousands there ! 



'Twas then Minaya thus addressed th' Hidalgos, leal 

and brave ; — 
" Fear not ! Your banners have been blest, that o'er 

your helmets wave ; 
From Leon, many a weary mile, the Cid your host hath 

led ;— 
On yonder plain let Slaughter pile her heaps of Moslem 

dead ! 



" The caged lion turns and tears the foes that wound 

him sore — 
Fear ije to face the Moslem spears \A\ki the brave EI 

Campeador ? 
Burst from your prison, Leonese ! Rend ev'ry bolt and 

bar ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 41 

Let your broad pennon flout* tlie breeze ! Our leader 's 
De Bivar !" 

Then doffed the Cid his casque, and said, "Minaya, 

brave thy word ! 
Ere falleth even's russet-shade,f we'll scatter yonder 

horde ! 
Castille should never blush to have warriors brave as 

thou ; — 
Sons, who'd as gladly hail the grave, as laurels on their 

brow ! 

" Forth ! Show the Moslem on yon plains,^ whose 

crescent brightly gleams, 
The blood, that thro' Castilian veins, doth flow in 

burning streams, — 
Show them in battle's bright career, 'tis honor leads ye 

on ; 
That honor, still, shall deck your bier, your fathers 

wooed and won ! 

" Show them your fathers feared not death and their 

sons are now as brave, 
Show them that Triumph's holy breath yet flutters o'er 

their grave ! 

* Flout the skies. — Shakspearc. 

t But see the morn, in russet niuntle clad, &lc.— Hamlet. 



42 SPANISH BALLADS. 

'Tis not the part of Spanish knight, 'till Conquest come, 

to die ; — 
'Till with crimson-wing she fan the fight, like eagle from 

on high !" 

He said, and to the doughty knight, Bermudez, true and 

bold, 
He gave in charge his pennon bright ; the Lion marked 

its fold ! 
" Hidalgo ! clasp it to thine heart, whether thou fight 

or flee. 
Be it sooner rent by Moslem dart, than ever torn from 

thee !" 

"Brave Cid!" the mailed warrior said, "thy streamer 

now is mine ! 
In triumph o'er each Moor shall tread the Lion's 

dauntless sign, — 
This Lion, Cid ! by heaven ! I swear, as Pedro wears a 

sword. 
Shall make, this day, his bloody lair amid yon' turbaned 

horde!" 

He seized the flag ; and, like the light of morn o'er hill 

and vale. 
Headlong spurred the Spanish knight — The shafts, 

they sped like hail, — 



SPANISH BALLADS. 43 

" Come on, Hidalgos, evVy one ! your Lion tramps the 

breeze ! 
We'll have, by heav'n ! ere set of sun, ten Moors for a 

Leonese !" 



B ABIE c A. 

Forth from the seat of Gothic power, marches the bold 

Bivar, 
And halts beneath Valencia's tower, his own by right of 

war; 
Nine hundred cavaliers, who wait upon their gallant 

lord. 
Thunder at Valencia's gate with dagger, hilt and sword. 

And 'mid the troop, with naked heads, two knights in 

armor dight. 
The war-steed, Babieca, led, with eye of flashing light ; — 
" Open, good King, your palace-doors ; a soldier stands 

without, 
Whose stalwart arm hath crushed the Moors !" — 'Twas 

thus Bivar spake out. 



44 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Bar and bolt asunder fly — tlie iron gate gives way ; 
Move on the gallant companie, in ])lume and war-array. 
Rodrigo sees a gallant throng surround their monarch's 

throne, 
And in the midst, his braves among, Alphonzo stands 

alone. 

" Alphonze ! behold a champion kneel who never knelt 

before !" 
Thus spake Rodrigo of Castille, the brave El Campeador ; — 
" I come not here to challenge thee to tourney, joust 

or fight ; 
But 'fore thee prove my loyalty as true and honest 

knight. 

"I have a steed, a better never hath charged where 

banners fly ; 
His speed like arrow from the quiver, or meteor from 

the sky. 
I pray thee. King ! receive this boon as thine for battle's 

tide ; 
Fear not the crescent of Mahoun if thou my steed 

bestride. 

" Lest thou shouldst deem my speech a boast, my 
praises false and vain, 



SPANISH BALLADS. 45 

King ! come with thy gallant host, and view him on the 

plain ; 
Thou'lt see him pliant to my hand as 'neath a silken 

rein ; 
Come, King, and gentles of the land, gallants, and 

knights of Spain !" 

Bivar now vaults upon his steed, armed from neck to heel ; 
The trumpet sounds, the courser bounds, as he feels the 

rowelled steel ; 
With winged feet and waving mane, with poised and 

shimmering spear, 
Champion and steed, they skirr the plain, as though 

they rode on air. 

Lo ! ev'ry gallant's eye is bent on Babieca's speed, 
Alphonzo stands in wonderment if he be sprite or steed ; — 
But Silence severs soon her chain — bursts forth a cry of 

fear — 
For the furious steed hath rent the rein that checked his 

mad career ! 

The champion moves not as he .flings the broken rein 

aside. 
But with the dangling fragment tries the maddened 

barb to guide ; — 



46 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Still, still they fly, as on lightning-wing, from a cloud of 

darkness freed. 
When suddenly, before the King, he checks his panting 

steed. 

" King, he is thine !" Rodrigo cried, as he lighted on the 

plain ; 
" A monarch's hand my steed should guide, a monarch 

hold his rein !" 
" Foul shame it were," Alphonse replied, " that man save 

thee, Bivar, 
Should spur so true a courser's side, when blows the 

blast of war." 



SPANISH BALLADS. 47 



ALPHONZOS OATH. 

Within an old and Gothic pile the lamps with faintness 

beamed, 
While round and down the vaulted aisle the Spanish 

banner streamed, 
And from the altar, rose the while, the incense' rich 

perfume. 
As though rehgion told her rites around a soldier's 

tomb. 

The altar round, on bended knee, throng many a casqued 

head. 
The monks they tell their beads full well, and many a 

prayer is sped ; 
A sword upon the altar lies, a cross-bow made of 

wood, 
While to hear Alphonzo's oath, the Cid in silence stood. 

" Rodrigo, think not I am loath, in face of sword and 

chain ; 
Nay, before God to make my oath, the King I have not 

slain ; 



48 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Anointed blood shall never smear a true Hidalgo's 

sword, 
Dishonor ne'er shall crown his spear, nor treachery his 

word. 

" Asturia's hardy mountaineer, with slow and stealthy 

pace,"^ 
His livid brow, bedewed with fear, as ghastly as his 

face, 
Tlie traitor's dagger might conceal beneath a courtier's 

air; 
But not a knight in all Castille so foul a deed would dare. 

" Rail not on me — thy charge is vain — Rodrigo de 

Bivar ! 
'Tis true, my foemen have I slain, but in the ranks of 

war; 
By all the mailed forms I swear, that round the altar 

kneel. 
To prove this dastard charge, I dare the bravest in 

Castille !" 

Pale was his brow, but flashed with fire his dark and 
kindling eye — 

* With stealthy pace, and Tarquin's ravishing strides.— JtfiurJc^A. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 49 

Trembled his livid lips with ire, as thunders shake the sky. 
" I give thee pardon, knight," he said, " though thy speech 

doth wound me sore," 
And, as he spake, his hand he laid upon El Carapeador. 

" Nay, offer not thy hand to me," exclaimed the Cid 

aloud ; 
" Once thou did'st claim my felilty, but my knee I never 

bowed. 
No King I know, no worship owe,* save my good sword 

and war ; 
Kings never made before them kneel Rodrigo de Bivar !" 

Alphonso then with passion shook ; his brow and cheek 

were pale ; 
" Think'st thou such language I will brook from one in 

casque and mail ? 
Had another spoken thus, my spear had pierced him 

where he stood. 
Thee, Cid, I banish for a year — I covet not thy blood !" 

"By Heaven! good King, it likes me well," replied 
El Campeador ; 

* The older writers transfer to " owe," the sense of-' own :"— 
" You make me strange, 
Even to the disposition that I ou}e.'''^Maebeth.'-Et passim. 



60 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" I bid your banners long farewell ; — your bidding 

wounds me sore ; 
A single year thou'st banislied me — the crime deserveth 

more — 
Bivar demands not liberty till years expire four !" 

With that he turned upon his heel, and left the King 

alone — 
No champion now in all Castille so brave to guard its 

throne. 
Each brave Hidalgo followed him — the bravest in the 

land ; 
The sword was braced on every limb, and gauntleted 

each hand ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 61 



THE BURIAL OF THE CID. 

[The body of the Cid was conducted, on horseback, to San Pedro, where 
it remained (according to the Spanish Chronicles), in an upright position, 
exposed to the public view for ten years.] 

Slowly knights and warriors come with a sad and 

measured tread ; 
Not for battle rolls the drum, but the burial of the dead : 
The soldier's battles all are o'er — His soul hath souo-ht 

her home ; 
And the doughty Cid, El Campeador, is passing to his 

tomb! 

Still, with a warrior's strength and pride, his hand it 
grasps the rein. 

While knights and gentles at his side fill the funeral- 
train ; 

No mortal could have deemed the Cid, as he rode on, 
were dead, 

Save for the eye and drooping lid, that told the soul was 
sped. 

Helm and shield and mail of knight, the livid champion 
wore — 



52 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Tizona's blade upon his right the dead Rodrigo bore ; 
Sad and solemn to behold, they march to Pedro's pile, 
While moveless droops the banner-fold above that 
warrior-file ! 

The master's corse doth still bestride the true and gallant 

steed 
That erst through battle's crimson tide bore him with 

breathless speed ; 
Lightless the eye, and low the head ; nor blood doth 

swell the vein. 
As though he feels the hand is dead that loosely holds 

the rein ! 

Through the dark midnight, by dim torch-light, their 

sorrowing way they trod ; 
And many a prayer was muttered low that the soul 

might pass to God ; 
And the cold and dewy morning-star its russet twilight 

shed. 
As his comrades left the brave Bivar to slumber with the 

dead ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 58 



ADDRESS OF COUNT FERNAN GONZALEZ 
PREVIOUS TO BATTLE WITH THE MOORS. 

Within the walls of Burgos' town. Count Fernan hath 

arrayed 
The vassals of the Spanish crown with targe and lance 

and blade ; 
The Moorish host is marshalled too ; — Alraanzoi' leads 

them on — 
The cymbals clash, the sabres flash ; — high waves the 

gonfalon ! 

The atabal with deadly peal; the Crescent, streaming 

bright — 
The jar and clank of burnished steel herald the Moorish 

might ; — 
Now face to face the armies stand, upon their spears 

they lean, 
When a Spanish knight, with naked brand, his courser 

spurs between. 

And scarce his barb the knight had spurred, in the midst 
between the foe. 



54 SPANISH BALLADS. 

When a low and stifled wail was heard, as of mourners 

in their woe ; — 
For, on a sudden, awful doom ! with the brave CastilHan, 
The earth, it op'd, like a yawning tomb, and swallowed 

steed and man ! 

It closed again upon its prey ; nor sign nor trace they see, 
Rider and steed are swept away, as autumn strips the 

tree ; 
Fear falls on every mailed man — quivers each iron 

hand ; — 
The soldier's rugged face is wan, and powerless his 

brand ! 

Count Fernan grasped his charger's rein, and waved his 
falchion bright, 

His mettled courser sped amain, as speeds the morning- 
light,— 

" Hidalgos ! sons of Burgos ! why doth fear freeze every 
vein ? 

Where is the vaunted Chivalry — the valor of old Spain ?" 

" Though heaven and earth in one combine with dream 

and omen drear, 
Beats there within yon' Spanish line a heart that quails 

with fear ? 



SPANISH BALLADS. 56 

Shame on the Craven who would wheel and 'fore the 

Crescent fly ! 
The sturdy blood of old Castille, than yield, would 

rather die ! 

" False, recreant knights ! ye will not lay the honors that 

ye've gained 
In many a proudly foughten day, with falchions crimson 

stained 
In dust, for ever to remain ; — soiled by Oblivion's breath ! 
Ye renegades to God and Spain ! your swords ye dare 

not sheath ! 

" Fear ye the Moorish for to count, because your 

comrade 's gone ? 
Castillians ! no ! — your coursers mount ! your host hath 

lost but one ! — 
Your banners raise ! The Moor displays his Crescent in 

the van — 
Forth every talchion ! Let it blaze, and stand ye, man 

to man ! 

" Say, they're a thousand, — we^ but ten ! What ! will 

ye turn and flee ? 
Can Spain invoke no nobler men, no truer knights than 

ve ? 



56 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Give me one drop of Spanish blood from a true Castillian 

lieart, 
'Tis the noblest stream that ever flowed beneath a 

Moorish dart ! 

" Hidalgos ! knights ! your coursers spur ! Give every 

barb the rein ! 
The field let steed and rider skirr ! ' St Jago for old 

Spain !' 
Shame on the soul would falter now, when the Moslem is 

before us, 
What ! quail ye ! fore the turbaned brow, while the Holy 

Cross flies o'er us !" 



SPANISH BALLADS. 67 



AT NIGHT, EMBARKING IN THE GALLEY 
OF HER LOVER, DUARDOS. 

'TwAs the blooming month of May, when the rose and 

lily vie, 
When the bird is singing on the spray, and summer 

lights the sky ; 
The stars, they shone, like happy isles, amid a sea of light, 
Where tears should ever change to smiles and never day 

know night ! 

It was a nigbt as fresh and fair as ever dew-drop wept ; 
Odors floated in the air from flowers as they slept, 
When a lithe and lovely form strayed mid the flowers' 

painted beds. 
And tears fell from the Spanish Maid, as she raised their 

drooping heads. 

"Farewell — farewell, ye children gay! For autumn's 
withered bowers 

Ye hive the sweets of scented May ! nurslings of sunshine- 
hours ! 

3* 



58 SPANISH BALLADS. 

No more the niglitingale's sad lay shall wake my 

listless ear — 
Flowers ! receive that holy dew — a maiden's parting tear. 

" Fountains of crystal light, farewell ! whose silver 

wavelets flow 
Through the perfumed bower, where flowers dwell, and 

their crimson beauties glow ! 
The glories of the earth and sky have floated on your 

breast. 
Bright as the amber hues that dye the sunset of the 

West. 

" Flowers and fountains, may the sun still gild ye with 

his ray. 
Still flush your leaves when I am gone, with the tints of 

rosy May ; — 
And heaven ne'er its rain refuse, nor morn her tear of 

dew. 
And may your Autumn-withered hues the kiss of Spring 

renew !" 

" Weep not, my Love !" Duardos said ; 
" There are other climes as bright. 

Where the sun is cloudless all the day, 

And the starry sky at night. 



i 

I 



SPANISH IJ A L L A D S . 59 

" There are sun-reflecting- waters there, 
And meads of emerald growing ; 
And a spirit-miisic, for the air 
Guides every wave that's flowing ! 

" And the gardens bhish in flowery prime, 
As thouo-h the mornino--skies 
Still sang the hymn of the golden time. 
When Creation slept in Paradise. 

" I have palaces of silver 
To greet my Spanish bride ; 
And maids shall walk behind thy train, 
And gallants by thy side. 

"And painted chambers glitter there 
With the gold of Turkey's mine ; 
And the fates and chances of my life 
On their blazoned pannels shine. 

" There thou shalt read of the bitter tear 
That dimmed thy lover's eye, 
When I dared the brave Primalion's spear, 
For thee to do or die. 

" Then away with me, my Spanish bride ! 
For Duardos' home is far — 



60 SPANISH BALLADS. 

What eye would fear the midnight-tide, 
When it guides by the Lovers' star ?" 

And now the bark, to the midnight-blast, cuts through 

the star-lit water, 
Tears quickly fall, as heels the mast, from the dark-eyed 

Spanish daughter, 
But dreams arise of that lovely shore, that hes beyond 

the deep. 
And the liquid music of the oar the maiden lulls to 

sleep. 



KING SEBASTIAN DIES IN BATTLE. 

Who is he, who rides so fast amid the dead and 

dying ;— 
His knightly pennon, to the blast, in shattered fragments 

flying. 
His armor beareth many a stain of foes now stark and 

cold ; — 
He reels upon his steed ; the rein, the hero scarce can 

hold! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 61 

Sebastian ! bravest 'mid the brave — a soldier, yet a 

King! 
Where Battle's floating banners wave on hisrh their 

crimson wing ; — 
Horseman and steed were ever found, unsheathed the 

monarch's glaive, 
Whose trenchant blade had made the ground full many 

a hero's grave. 

Lo ! from each quarter of the field rageth the battle- 
cry— 

" Fly, brothers, fly ! Down spear and shield ! the foe is 
on us !— fly I" 

The monarch checks his courser's rein ; — raiseth his 
falchion bright, 

And dasheth 'mid his knights amain to stem their 
craven flight ! 

The traitor's spear its work hath done — Don Sancho was 

no more ! 
" Your king, your king — Ho ! every one !" shouted 

El Campeador. 
With blooded spur and naked steel they speed their 

breathless way — 
Around their murdered lord they kneel — they threaten, 

weep, and pray I 



62 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" Where is the traitor ?" cried the Cid, still kneeling by 

his lord ; 
" The deed be mine ! now God forbid it should not stain 

my sword ! 
Oh ! murdered king ! is there a soul in this brave 

companie, 
So craven, dastard, or so foul, as not to die for thee ?" 

In solemn phalanx still they kneel, the bleeding corse 

around : 
Those stern, but weeping eyes reveal the soul's untented 

w^ound.* 
Courtiers, they flatter even in death, as though the soul 

could come, 
Charmed by their vain and empty breath, back from its 

silent home.f 

" Thou art my king ! thy vassal, I !" the old count Cabra 

said: 
" Brave knights ! you've seen your master die — behold 

his crownless head ! 
To weep the body back again to life — to light and air, 
Our tears and hopes ahke are vain — the soul demands 

our prayer." 

* "The untented woundings of a father's ciirse 
Pierce every sense about thee." — Lear. 
t " Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death !" — Qray. 



SPANISH BALLADS. 63 

The king then raised his swimming eyes, death's seal 
was on his brow — 

" Soldiers and knights ! or ere he dies, list ye your king's 

last vow — !" 
Upon the warrior's mailed breast in weakness sank his 

head ; 
The soul had sought her sainted rest — the warrior-king 

was dead ! 



VELLIDO DOLFOS' TREASON. 

Vellido, with the lightning's speed, Zamora leaves 

behind ; 
O'er hill and vale he spurs his steed — his course is as the 

wind! 
The sons of Arias Gonzalo he flies with hate and fear, 
While claims he, from his deadly foe, both friendship's 

hand and tear. 

" Now, God protect the Spanish crown and throne !" the 

traitor cries. 
And bends the knee before the king, in meek and lowly 



64 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" My lord ! I am thy vassal, true as any in the land !" 
And, as he spake, the traitor drew his keen and trenchant 
brand. 

" The old man, Gonzalo, hath sought to take thy vassal's 

life; 
Curst be the flag 'neath which I've fought in many a 

bloody strife, 
I ask but vengeance, now, my lord ! for a wronged and 

injured man ; 
And soon thou'lt hail, with spear and mail, Vellido in 

thy van. 

" Nor this alone — Zamora's town — its might, its 

treasures — all — 
Shall own the sway of Sancho's crown — thy banner 

guard its wall ! 
Vellido knows each secret gate — each guarded pass he 

knows — 
By heaven ! I'll rest not 'till my hate is wreaked upon 

my foes !" 

Then spake the king : " I trust thy faith — my shield is 

now thy word ; 
It cannot be that traitor's breath should stain Vellidu's 

sword !" 



SPANISH BALLADS. 65 

The traitor smiled — in whispered tone, he said, " My 

lord ! I wait — 
But no one, save the king alone, shall know that secret 

gate !" 

The king waved back his kingly band, as, each his 

courser spurred, 
And calmly laid his mailed hand upon his jewelled 

sword. 
" Lead on. Sir Knight I" Don Sancho cried ; " now 

vengeance on thy foe !" 
" Vengeance on thee r the knight replied, and felled him 

at a blow! 

Who hath not seen the havoc made when storm sweej s 

sea and land ? 
Thus the ruthless foe did crouch below the sweep of his 

naked brand ; 
While yet upon his own he calls and deals his blows 

around. 
Reeling with wounds, the courser falls, 'neath his master 

to the ground. 

Scarce had he fallen, when a knight pricked forth his 

gallant steed ; 
Lo ! spur and rein the courser strain to aid the monarch's 

need ; 



60 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Sore press upon the kniglit his foes ; his arms wear 

many a stain, 
But his foemen fall beneath his blows, as the sickle sheds 

the grain. 

" Mount, mount, good King ! my destrier," the gallant 

champion cries ; 
" We'll bravely cai-ry thee where'er the foeman's banner 

flies ; 
Look round thee, king ! for far and near thy harnessed 

champions fall, 
As though for aye were dimmed the star of gallant 

Portugal ! 

" Death and dismay beset thine host — their blood it 

streams like water ! 
Good master! mount; for all is lost in this sad day of 

slaughter — 
Fly, fly, good king ! your knights implore ! Here, 

master, seize the rein, 
I would not have thee see the gore that streams the 

battle-plain ! ^ 

" Woe worth the day !" Sebastian said ; " I marshalled 

ye for fight ! 
That I should see my champions dead, or worse, in 

coward-flight ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 67 

I take thy proffer, loyal knight ! as freely as 'tis given ; 
Be thy truth to save me from the grave, thy best 
reward in heaven !" 

The champion flingeth down the rein. Dismount ! — he 

can but try ; — 
For freshly gusheth every vein, and Death doth glaze 

his eye — 
The reeling corse the king receives, the champion's 

battle's o'er; — 
The monarch weeps — the knight, he sleeps the sleep 

that w^akes no more ! 



The Moorish king doth ride alone, alone without his 

host ; 
And many a tear and bitter groan proclaim Alhama 

lost ; — 
He rideth from Elvira's gate forth through Granada's 

town. 
That town he swayed, as king of late, with sceptre and 

with crown. 



68 SPANISH BALLADS. 

Woe betide the hapless hour when king Boabdil heard 
That fallen was Alhama's tower beneath the Christian 

sword, 
Woe worth the messenger ! Woe worth the tidings 

that he bore ! 
He smote the trembling slave to earth, the hated tidings 

tore. 

Then vaulted on his steed, the rein he grasped with 

trembling hand, 
Fate darkly whispered — " Christian Spain would yet 

sway Moorish land !" 
Along the Zacatin he guides his mettled Arab roan, 
And thousands eye him, as he rides, a king without a 

throne ! 

And scarce within Alhambra's wall, the king his entry 

made. 
When Zegris, to his aid he calls. Alfaqui and Alcayde ; — 
" Let every trumpet peal ?" he cried, " within Elvira's 

gate ;— 
Spread our Prophet's jewelled banner wide ! Allah ! God 

is great ! 

" Peal every trumpet ! Let the drum thunder the note 
of war ! 



SPANISH BALLADS. 69 

Alhama's lost ! The Christians come ! Blaze every 

scymitar ! — 
Peal every gong and atabal with a burst shall rend the 

skies, 
Be vengeance for Alhama's fall, the Moslem's 

Paradise !" 

The Moors upon the Vega, and the Moors within the gate, 
Hear in the blast their King's command, as 'twere the 

tongue of Fate ; 
With breathless speed and sweating steed they press in 

full career ; 
With scymitar bare, they smite the air, and tilt the 

burnished spear. 

Obedient to that warlike blast they stand in glittering 

ring. 
When a hoary Moor spake out at last : — " Wherefore 

that summons, king ?" 
" Wherefore ?" the king replied, with brow now pale, 

now red with fear ; 
" Alhama is the Christian's now — read thou my summons 

there /" 

Then spake an old Alfaqui, hoar and weak with years he 
stood ; 



70 SPANISH BALLADS. 

" Remember, king ! thy palace-floor is stained with 

Moslem blood ; 
The Abencerrapjes' blood was shed within this very 

room ; — 
In Alhama's cold and spectral dead, king ! read thou 

thy doom !" 



There's weeping in Granada's town ; there's wailing 

near and far ; — 
Dim is the Zegri's emerald crown, and waned the Crescent 

star ! 
Alfaquis chaunt the Prophet's praise, as they move in 

sadness on. 
While monks their pious voices raise to the glory of the 

Son. 

Where the Crescent, late, its lustre shed, a milder glory 

falls, 
For the bannered cross is widely spread within Granada's 

walls ; 



SPANISH BALLADS. 7l 

Within the mosque the Christian kneels, without are 

Christian spears, 
And as " Te Deum " loudly peals, the Moor drops 

burning tears. 

Wave high the banners of Castille above the Christian 

band ; 
Bursts forth in wild and joyous peal ; — " The Moor hath 

left the land ;" 
March on the Moslems through one gate, their pennons 

drooping low ; 
Through the other^ come with step elate, the proud, 

exulting foe ! 

His beard he tore; — the gems he wore, tramples the 

king to earth ; 
While his Spahis heard Boabdil pour these words of 

sadness forth ; 
" Fair city of my home and faith ! Granada, fare thee 

well ! — 
For love of thee, his latest breath thy king would dearly 

sell! 

" The Moor, full seven hundred years, within thy wall 

held sway ; 
Woe worth the Christian for the tears he makes us shed 

to-day ; 



72 SPANISH BALLADS. 

In thee I drew my earliest breath, but far from thee 

shall die. 
Mahoun! avenge Granada's faith! Thy sword smite 

Christentie ? 

" Mother of gentle Dames wer't thou, of high and 

honored name ; 
Thou'st wove for many a champion's brow the chaplet of 

his fame ; — 
For years of deadly hate we've striven 'gainst yon' 

exulting Lord, 
And hoped to find the Moslem heaven lay 'neath the 

Christian's sword ! 

" Thy children's hopes, alas ! were vain, though we 

struggled, toiled and bled ; 
Better than wear this galling chain, thy suffering sons 

were dead ! 
Granada ! look upon thy Chief ! Fair city look thv last ! — 
Granade ! Alhambra ! Generalife ! — your day of glory's 



"There's not a flower within thy walls that is not 

doomed to die ; — 
No fount again within thy halls shall glad the gazer's 

eye — 



SPANISH BALLADS. 73 

Crownless and sceptreless, I leave my cradle — ^kingdom — 

home — 
A pilgrim doomed — mayhap the wave may prove 

Boabdil's tomb !•' 

He said, and gave his barb the rein ; — his knights and 

cavaliers 
Begirt their monarch's mourning-train with their bright 

and glistening spears ; 
When lo ! a voice upon his ear like wind that lulls the 

wave ; — 
" Better, my son ! than thou be here, Granada were thy 

grave ! 

" People and kingdom, all are gone ! Son, wherefore 

dost thou breathe ? 
Down with yon' waving gonfalon ! your swords, ye 

traitors, sheathe ! 
Thou'st hung upon these breasts, but now this arm 

could smite thee dead ; 
For I spurn the brand in a craven's hand, as the crown 

on a traitor's head !" 



LEGENDS AND SUPERSTITIONS 



IRELAND. 



THE ENCHANTED RING; 

A TALE OF FAERIE. 

The sun is high ; and hound and horn 

Breathe welcome echo to the morn, 

As from the mountain-top it flings 

Those treasured hues, that lay through night, 

Deep-folded in her dusky wings, 

To gild its path with gems of light — 

A summer's morn ! The earth and air 

Seem wrapt in holy dream, as 'twere 

That glorious dawn, when first God sent 

Light thro' the murky firmament. 

Dispelling cloud and vapor far 

As rose Creation's morning-star, 

Fhnging her myriad hues, unfurled 

Like banner bathed in rainbow-light, 

Waking from Chaos' chains, a world 

Had lain, 'till then, in dreams of Night — 

And earth and air, — the very skies 

(As one by one the stars of even 

Close up their ever watchful eyes, 



78 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

And melt into the blue of heaven) 

Seem rev'ling in that golden ray, 

Baptizing the approach of Day — 

For earth hath donned her mantle green, 

The flower shakes off its midnight dew ; — 

Twinkles the grass its emerald-sheen, 

The harebell bares her breast of blue — 

And Summer's bells are sweetly ringing 

From leaves just op'ning to the day, 

And birds, bright morning's minstrels, singing. 

Like spirits, their sweet matin-lay ; — 

All — all would seem, as Paradise 

Again were in this world of our's. 

Restoring the lost light that lies 

Deep in the shade of Eden's bowers ! 

The woods, they ring with many a note 

Of shrill horn, answered from the throat 

Of baying hound ; whose pointed ear 

Pricks at the sound of huntsman's cheer. 

Waking the timid, couching hare 

From the deep covert of her lair — 

And now sweeps on the panting steed. 

With the breathless flight of arrowy speed ; — 

The straining nostril swollen wide, 

The rowel deep in his sweating side, 

The full dark eye, like orb of light. 



-THE ENCHANTED RING. 79 

The ear pricked up at hound's full bay, 

As pants the war-steed at the sight 

Of legions marshalled for the fray ! 

Prince Corniac heads the gallant band, 

No doughtiei" prince through Erin's land 

To lead the host or follow hound, 

Or lead the way where trumpet-sound 

Points out the hero's crimson path 

Through glory's shout or shriek of death — 

The chase he heads, through vale and plain 

With sweating steed and slackened rein. 

Now cheers the hound, now swells the cry 

Of merrie huntsman's revelry ; — 

His snowy plume, like banner high 

Waved in the van of chivalry. 

Points to the jocund troop the way 

Where cowers the expected prey — 

But hark ! what means that distant cry ? 

Checked are the steeds, and ev'ry eye. 

As when the ambushed cannonade 

In showers pours its fiery rain 

From the thick forest's covert shade. 

In slaughter on the battle-plain. 

Is strained to catch the sounds that bring 

Strange tidings upon Echo's wing — 

" The prey is our's !" Prince Corraac cried ; 



80 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

And pricking his proud courser's side ; 
As speeds the shaft by bowman shot, 
The barb obeys the slackened rein, 
And cheerily the bugle-note 
Rings out its music once again — 
On, on they dash, hke waves of river, 
Darting away from its silver quiver ; — 
On, on, where the baying hound doth lead. 
Through tangled furze or grassy mead — 
Through the wide open plain they skirr, 
With foaming steed and blooded spur ; 
Of aught unmindful save the yell 
Of hound, each moment rising through 
The echoing depths of yonder dell, 
Now bursting on the huntsman's view. 
The Prince alights ; and clamb'ring down 
The rocky height, that, like a crown, 
Begirts that sweet, sequestered dell 
(Meet resting-place for fairy-spell). 
Through withered branches broke his way, 
Whence rose the pack's still ceaseless bay ; 
When, quicker than the thought of dream, 
Breaks on his ear a human scream, — 
A scream of agony and fear. 
As though the parting soul had giv'n 
All anguish forth could load it here, 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 81 



Ere 't took its last farewell to heav'n. 
Nor passed a moment, ere he sprang 
Amid the pack that stood at bay 
With fiery eye and whetted fang, 
For the last leap upon their prey — 
An old and haggard form stood there, 
With furrowed cheek and hoary hair, 
And palsied form, and wrinkled brow, 
A hundred winters might have strown 
With thin and scattered hairs of snow, 
For Youth's bright sunny locks of brown — 
One long shrill blast, and ev'ry hound 

Cowers full low upon the ground ; 

And quoth the Prince ; " What would one here, 

In place so lone, so old as thou ? 

Giv'st thou the dead a prayer or tear ? 

Or cam'st thou here for holy vow ?" 

" It boots not now ; but one boon more 

Awaits me from thee ere we part ; 

And length of days, and golden store 

(Such as might glad a Prince's heart) 

Youth, shall be thine—." She paused a while, 

And o'er her fleshless face a smile, 

As sunlight o'er the desert strays 
In Autumn's bleak and stormy days, 
Half-mirthfuUy, half-sadly played, 
4* 



82 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Like straggling rays through forest-shade ; 

And from her eyes there shot a light, 

All faint as that on summer's night, 

That quivers one brief moment ere 

'Tis quenched in the cold midnight air : 

Nor more she said, but waved her hand ; 

Aghast, the knight half-drew his brand — 

Yet quickly thrust it back again, 

As thouQ-h he felt the burning shame 

That dyed his cheek with crimson stain, 

Branded the craven on his name — 

" Put up thy sword ! it hath no fear 

For one whose sands so near are run ; — 

Why pull the leaf that Autumn's sere 

May wither ere the set of sun ? 

Come, follow me, — but youth, beware ! 

For human hope and human prayer 

May offer up the heart's last sigh, 

Ere, 'mid the mystic depths of sea, 

Or treasures between earth and sky. 

They find the wealth that's doomed for thee !" 
***** 

Now on a lake's still shore they stand, 

Whose waters in the moon-lit beam. 

As lambently they kiss the sand. 

Scarce seem to wake from that sweet dream 



THE ENCHANTED RING, 83 

Of far-otf worlds, that heaven pours 
At midnight, from its starry bowers — 
Still are the waves, — as still, as Death 
Had hushed them with his icy breath ; 
And wind and wave were laid to sleep, 
On the cold bosom of the deep. 
Wrapt in that lonely spirit-shroud, 
Half woven of moonbeam and of cloud — 
Low breaks the music on the strand 
Of ev'ry wave that bears from far 
The silver tones of spirit-land. 
Like echoes cauQ-ht from fallino- star ; 
And ev'ry murmur as it dies. 
Dissolves in seraph harmonies ! 
" Lo ! ev'ry wave is sleeping now, 
Fair youth !" she said, " and soft and low 
Falls the sweet hymn that ev'ning sings 
Ere Day folds up his golden wings — ' 
But, 'neath that wave a treasure lies. 
Such as for erring soul might win 
Again the gates of Pai-adise, — 
Unsay the doom of mortal sin — 
A magic ring, long sought in vain. 
Within those waves for years hath lain ; 
Thine the venture now to seek 
That long-lost ring, within the lake ; 



84 THE ENCHANTED KING. 

Thine the hazard — thine the prize 

To find this treasure of the wave ; 

Givino' it back the Hfijht of skies 

That gladdens ne'er the sea-shell's cave I" 

" This, this be mine ?" the Prince replied — 

His brow suflfused with flush of pride : 

" Now by yon' stars that look adown 

From skies with light they guard and crown, - 

By yon' pale orb like diamond set 

In midnight's sparkling coronet, — 

By every hope and every fear 

That wings its flight from human heart, 

Up to that virgin crescent-sphere ; 

From those who love, weep, meet or part ; — 

No talisman I ask or crave 

To guard me fi'om the treacherous wave ; 

I seek no rite of fairy spell 

But haste to do thy 'best ; — Farewell !" 

He said ; and, like the flight of deer 

When hound and horn proclaim aloud 

The fury of the chase is near. 

Plunged 'mid the water's snowy shroud ;— 

Nor passed a moment ere he felt 

The nature that within him lay, 



THE ENCHANTED KING. 85 

Link after link, dissolve and melt 

Like mist before the sun, away ; 

He saw the waters gliding by 

As silver clouds in a summer sky, 

Bathed in the pearly light that shone 

In snowy showers from Dian's zone ; 

They touched him not, but on they went 

Music and hght around them playing ; 

Reflecting from the firmament 

Eack meteor from its bright home straying ; — 

Around seemed one bright holiday. 

Wave with wave in seeming play. 

Each sporting with the silver band 

The moon had flung on every crest. 

To seal, with touch of her bright wand. 

Their laughing eyes to midnight-rest : 

Yes — yes, 'twas music all around, 

And echo sent back spirit-sound 

Of naiad's song and lone mermaid. 

As tranquilly she twines her braid 

In the clear wave that mirrors back 

Her beauties from its silver track — 

Oh ! 'tis a world as new, he feels. 

As that the dreamer's sphere reveals ; — 

When the wrapt soul in visioned trance 

From earth, on wing of thought upborne, 



86 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Fixes on heaven that upward glance 
It feels is kindred with the morn, 
And earth and heaven in one unite 
To make that dream a sphere of light ! 
But not the change around him cast 
From what he saw on earth, when last 
He looked on her green hills, and skies 
Swathed in the garb of summer-dyes ; — 
Not there the change alone ; he feels 
A new-born spirit rise within — * 

A touch — a breath, like that which seals 
The soul just winged from earth and sin. 
'Tis blood no longer warms his veins, 
Tainted and foul with mortal stains ; 
Instead thereof a current plays, 
As pure and fresh as that which ran 
Through human frame in elder days. 
Quickened by spark Promethean — 
His eye hath now an angel's ken 
To see delights denied to man ; 
For brighter worlds are round him now, 
Than ever burst on mortal view ; 
Wreathed in the silver and the snow. 
They catch from each wave's passing hue, 
And flinging as they pass, a ray 
That makes that world, eternal day ! 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 87 

Still, as he wings his watery track 
A thousand mirrors give him back 
An image, such as that might beam 
On young Endyraion in his dream, 
When Luna, seen from Latmos' height, 
Borne onward in her car of light, 
Heard the secret low and deep, 
Breathed like incense o'er his sleep, 
As perfume winding through the cell 
Of flower where it loves to dwell ; 
She heard ; and, on a snowy ray 
Of moonbeam, earthward bent her way, 
Touching the dreamer's lips with kiss 
That thrilled his soul with love and bliss : 
Oh ! such the image bright, that passed 
The mortal on his watery flight, 
And the rich loveliness it cast 
Seemed native to a heaven of light : — 
He feels — he sees the change ; his hair 
Hangeth in wavy ringlets down, 
Bright as the beams of morning, where 
They cluster into daylight's crown ; 
And there's a beauty in his face 
The limner's art might vain essay 
In fancy's heavenly forms to trace 
With pencil dyed in sunbeam's ray, 



88 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

And model from an angel brought, 

Creation of the poet's thought ; 

His form ; — oh ! 'tis one waving hue 

Of beaming beauty, all-divine ; 

Half-made of rays that played and shone 

In streams of radiance round God's throne, 

So bright we can but veil our eyes 

Like seraphim in Paradise ; 

And half of air, like clouds we see 

In the deep blue's immensity ; 

So light, so fleeting that they melt 

Ere half their beauty's seen or felt, 

Fading away in summer-rack 

To their bright home in heaven back ! 

Yes, yes, he feels a change hath come 

Like that which flings its spell around 

The soul unprisoned from the tomb ; 

Where death its wing so long hath bound ; 

A change like that which Hope and Faith 

Bring to the spirit after death ; 

Immortal change Religion brings 

To earth, down from her starry height. 

Giving the dead a seraph's wings 

To roam through spheres of endless light ! 

Oh ! rapture thus to feel the play 

Of wing immortal cleave the way — 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 89 

The bright pathway to angels given, 

That points their native home in heaven ; — 

To feel the dull and senseless clod 

At touch of spirit melt away, 

Sealed by the impress of a God, 

Ere it hath turned again to clay. 

Still on he wends his journey bright, 

Like arrow loosed from bow of light, 

Flying onward, as the waves retreat 

In silver masses on each side ; 

Like the suspended winding-sheet 

Of foam that shrouds the mountain-tide — 

But hark ! he stays, for voices tell 

The secrets of this mystic sphere. 

In tones of sweetness such, that well 

A spirit e'en might pause to hear — 

They come in notes far sweeter than 

Ever was waked by minstrel-hand, 

'Mid strings of an ,^Eolian, 

In wand'ring air from mountain-land ; — 

And these the words that float along 

Each sweUing wave that laughs with song. 
" Down, down to our home in the deep ! Come away ! 
It hath not the light of your earth-born day ; 
But oh ! it hath radiance lovelier far. 
For each gem-studded wave hath the light of a star ! ^ 
And our halls with crystal and silver sliine, 



90 THE ENCHANTED KING. 

Keflecting, like mirrors, the colors tliat twine 

With their bright wreaths of pearl and sapphire, that vie 

With the brightest we see in your own summer-sky — 

Come down, then, come down ! for our banquet is spread 

Of soft dews, oh ! far sweeter than rose ever shed ; 

And our goblets of pearl with nectar are filled, 

More delicious than honey-bee ever distilled. 

And then for our song, sweet as ever was heard 

At the first blush of spring from her favorite bird : 

Not your lark's, nor your nightingale's notes, as they fall 

Can rival it ; — no — oh ! 'tis sweeter than all ! 

For our's is the gush of the musical wave. 

As it dashes and ebbs from the coral-lit cave ; 

And the echo from each liquid wave, as it swells, 

Awakens the answer of murmuring shells — 

And our's is the anthem of Freedom that flies, 

Like meteor undying, from mountain to skies, — 

A theme that finds echo wherever is heard 

The boom of the wave or wild note of the bird — 

And thine shall be Love, oh ! unchangeably bright 

As the moon of your earth on a long summer-night ; 

Living on — hving on 'mid unwithering hues, 

And exhaling to heaven, like rose-born dews — 

Tlien welcome, fair youth ! to our home in the deep. 

For lulled is each wavelet to pillow thy sleep ; 

And the lamp that we light to watch over thy dream 

Shall be fed from the diamond of wave and moonbeam.'^ 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 91 

As o'er the water stilly mute 

Are hushed the dying tones of lute, 

When sweetly stealing o'er the crest 

Of wave its music breathes to rest, 

So fades the Naiads' melody, 

Like the soft ripple from the oar. 

Or wave, whose echoes break and die. 

At even on some distant shore — 

And scarce the list'ning ear had dwelt 

On the far echoes, as they melt 

From wave to wave, in music playing, 

Like summer-wind 'mid harp-strings straying, 

Ere 'round the knight, with wings outspread 

Stood spirits in bright retinue 

With emerald crown upon the head. 

And raiment of the ocean blue — 

And 'round the stranger many a maze 

Of circling light they sport and play ; 

As insects wanton in the haze 

Of sunshine brief on summer's day ; — 

While from the conches that they bear 

Such mystic sounds enchain the ear. 

Half-speech, half-music ; notes that dwell 

In richest union, lovers say. 

When sings the love-lorn Philomel 

From midnight to the dawn of day — 



92 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

All beautiful as Day they stand 

Weaving its halo of the light 

It wakens with its golden wand 

From cradle, where the starry night 

Had wrapt it in her mantle cold 

Of many a dark and dusky fold — 

A moment, and at signal given, 

Like lightning darting down from heaven, 

The troops of radiance part in twain. 

While rings out sweet and airy strain 

From wreathed shell, and as it dies 

In eddies of rich harmonies, 

A form, more glorious — brighter far 

In stature — beauty than the rest ; 

Radiant with beams, as Day's own star 

Smiling in glory in the West, 

There stands, surrounded by a zone, 

Like rainbow, that around her shone, 

Blending the galaxy of dyes 

That decks the noontide in the skies, 

With the rich hues that float and glide 

In streams of light on summer-even 

O'er ocean's calm impurpled tide. 

Like pilgrims from their native heaven — 

The spirits, each his emerald crown 

Lays at her feet in homage down, 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 93 

While their sweet voices accents raise 
Of blended harmony and praise — 
That scarcely e'en can rapture dwell 
On those rich notes that gush and rise 
In union sweet of voice and shell 
Where ocean's mystic music lies ; 
For Cormac sees the mao^ic rinoj 
A flood of em'rald lustre fling 
Upon the band ; so bright, intense, — 
It almost dazzles mortal sense ! 
But what the rapture mute that bound 
His wond'ring soul, at the rich sound 
Of Naiad-harmonies that pour 
Their music on that magic shore, 
When accents from the spirit's lip 
On his tranced ear as lightly break. 
As those ye hear in the feathery dip 
Of swallow's wing in a sunny lake — 
" Mortal ! this magic ring is thine ; — 
Yes, thine alone the ghtt'ring prize. 
Hath tempted thee to realm divine. 
Unlocking all its mysteries ! 
For thou hast seen the spirit's form 
That rides in wrath upon the storm ; 
Lashing the crested wave to foam, 
And 'gulphing in its madd'ning play, 



94 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Souls to their last and dreary home, 

That o'er its treacherous bosom stray — 

And thou hast heard the gentle strains, 

Soft as steal o'er your summer-plains, 

When winds, like harps that angels sweep, 

Give dreams to flowers as they sleep ; 

The strains with which we spirits wake 

At morn the waves upon the lake, 

And lull them to their evening-rest, 

When twilight curtains the bright West — 

And thou hast seen the silver sheet 

That bursts in revelry upon 

The beach, where light and music meet, 

Like children of the midday sun ; 

Flinging around in diamond-showers. 

Gems that fade not through Time's long hours ; 

Speaking to earth those harmonies 

That quicken the eternal ocean ; 

When sound stole o'er it from the skies, 

And gave its stagnant surface motion ! 

Yes, all thou'st seen from the light spray 

That wantons on a summer's day 

To the swing of the sullen and hollow boom 

Of the wave that closes for ever — in doom ! 

Now, wing thy flight for earth ; — ^yet stay, 

Or ere thou seek'st the light of Day — !" 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 96 

The spirit paused, and fixed her gaze 
Upon the ling, whose emerald blaze 
Shot far and near through spray and foam, 
Lighting them up hke pillared dome, 
Spirits had piled from the bright waves 
That clustering lay in jewelled heaps ; 
Like diamonds in those murky caves 
Where starlight in its calmness sleeps. 
But scarcely had he ta'en the ring, 
When, as on fancy's buoyant wing. 
Through depths of earth, and sea, and air, 
'Mid all most beautiful and fair, 
E'en beyond ocean, where the day 
Gilds the far shores of rich Cathay, 
From the deep sea-cave, where the night 
Couches on the soft billow's foam. 
Up to the star-crowned mountain-height, 
Where morning builds her golden home ; — 
From the bright Paradise that erst 
Held joys unfading as the flowers 
Of its eternal spring, when first 
Day woke the perfume of its bowers. 
To that bright heaven where angels rove 
Through an eternity of love. 
And light, and joy, from star to star. 
Bearing upon their wings afar 



96 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

That light from the Eternal's throne 
That girds all heaven with its zone ; — 
'Mid all the glories magic might 
Summon from depths of day or night, 
'Mid all the mysteries she can 
Reveal to awe-struck gaze of man, 
Leading him on in mystic track 
Through the signs of her dark zodiac, 
His tranced spirit wrapt and borne, 
Like dreamer on the wing of morn. 
Soars far away in angel-flight 
To worlds unseen by mortal eye ; 
Each hazy cloud a car of light, 
That floats in dreamy beauty by ! 
Fixed and motionless he stands, 
Like statue from the sculptor's hands ;- 
His eye, it sees not ;— yet a dream 
Lies buried 'neath that half-closed lid ; 
As oft we see the mid-day beam 
Flash 'neath the billows where 'tis hid- 
His wings repose in many a fold 
Of blended emerald and gold. 
And sense suspended hardly deems 
If 't he, indeed, a Land of Dreams, 
Wliile misty visions floating by 
Scarce lend impression to the eye ; — 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 9*7 

" Is 't life or death ?" he cries ; " or where 
Dwells Cormac now, in earth or air ?" 
But ere the words trom Cormac fell 
In echo through the waves around, 
He felt upon his soul a spell, 
Heard in his ear-a sweeter sound 
Than when the spirit's choral song 
Had floated in rich tide along, — 
It was the Naiad's self that spake 
With voice as sweet, as when the breeze 
Of summer floats upon a lake. 
Or twines amid the drooping trees. 

" By the silvery light 

That the waves return 

To the moon, when at night, 

From her heaven-fed urn. 
She sends down to mortals that beam from the skies 
That lovers embalm for their own Paradise ! 

By the blushes that rise 

To the rapturous kiss 

When the soul and the eyes 

In their short-lived bhss, 
Speak each to the other, those murmurings deep 
That break from the lips of Young Love in his sleep ! 

By the tear and the smile 
5 



98 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Of a generous heart, 
When it seeks to beguile 
Our grief when we part ; 
By that harrowing tear that at parting we shed, 
And that saddest of all tears, we give for the dead ! 
By ev'ry bright star 
Pavilioned on high, 
Whose fiery car 

Wheels its track through the sk}'-, 
Those shrines of the lover, those altars that bear 
The heart's purest incense, its hope or despair ! 
By the hope and the faith 
Thou hast pledged to me now, 
By the dark brand of death 
Fve effaced from thy brow ; 
By the undying life I have poured through each vein, 
Thou art mine, thou art mine — Lo ! I've broken thy 
chain !" 
Is 't Music, thus, that woos his ear 
With tidings from some angel-sphere. 
Where night and day, the air that blows 
O'er beds of bright, enamelled hue, 
Scarce wakes the dreaming flower's repose. 
Scarce from its bosom sweeps the dew; 
But scatters, as it glides along- 
Through its mystic path of Song, 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 99 

From 'neath its outspread, rainbow-wing, 

The harmony of endless Spring ! 

Oh ! yes, 'twas Music's sweetest tone, 

Such as we hear, when, one by one 

The choristers of summer come 

Forth from their sunny, scented home 

In earth and air, with welcome sweet, 

To sing the gladness of that hour, 

When blushing Spring and Summer meet, 

Eejoicing, in their nuptial bower — 

A dream so lasting, so intense, 

It seems to wrap — steep ev'ry sense 

Of Coi'mac, as his fancy strays 

In sleep, through dream-land's misty haze — 

" Wilt thou be mine ? To live through years 

Darkened by neither grief nor tears, 

Unchilled by Friendship's altered brow, 

Unchanged by Passion's perjured vow, 

Thine heart unwrung by earth-born grief 

When loved ones die, like th' Autumn-leaf, 

Mingling the dust of Earth's decay 

With the sweets that burden a summer's day, 

The tear and the sigh with the sounds that rise 

From Nature's untold harmonies ; 

To change the clouds that throng the West 

(When sinks the Sun on Ocean's breast) 



100 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

For one long, bright, undying Day, 

That Night can never chase away ; 

And those pale gleams by moonlight shed, 

Like vigils by the midnight-dead, 

To chancje them for the lio-ht that darts 

Like meteor from its lightning-quiver, 

When wave from wavelet as it parts, 

Flashes forth silver light for ever !" 

" Can this be mine ?" the prince replied ; 

" A Spirit be a Mortal's bride ? 

Canst thou the burning seal forget 

That Immortality hath set 

Upon thy brow, when Morning shone 

First upon Earth, from God's bright throne ? 

Oh ! rapture, with thee, thus, to dwell 

Through ages in thy sea-wrought home, 

List'ning the song of wave and shell 

In echo to the wreathing foam ! 

Will I be thine ? oh ! ask the flower. 

Loves it not its own scented bower, 

"Where Morning gilds its bed, and Night 

Steeps its slumbers in Moonlight ? 

The bird that wheels its golden track 

In joyous circles through the sky, 

Whether you e'er could woo it back 

To earth, to droop its wing and die ? 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 101 

The water to return the ray 

It hives within its silver cells ; 

Where, through the sunshine-hours of day, 

With Music it for ever dwells ? 

No more, no more — I'm thine !" he said ; 

But while he spake, a livid hue, 

Like that we see upon the dead, 

Over his brow a shadow threw. 

The Spirit marked it — " Dost thou weep," 

She said, " for those in Death that sleep, 

Or parted ties, that ne'er again 

Can weave on earth their broken chain ? 

Or weep'st thou aught — ?" The tear that brake 

From Cormac, more than language spake 

The unbidden thoughts at heart, that rise 

When earth and all her memories, 

Ties and affections, joy and pain, 

Throng thickly through his heart and brain — 

" Let me see the earth once more," he cried, 

" In all the glow of her summer-pride ; 

The flower bursting at early day. 

The lark trilling her roundelay. 

Her matin-praise in every note. 

As it gushes in joy from her liquid throat : 

Cloud upon cloud, still higher and higher. 

Ascending the morn like column of fire ; 



102 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Let me look again on the painted bed, 

With its varied hues of blue and red, 

As though it were stained with ev'ry dye 

That streams at night through the galaxy ; 

Oh ! let me see the winter cold. 

Like monarch upon his throne of snow, 

With his sceptre of ice, and his crown of gold 

From the sun, like a halo, descend on his brow ; 

The Spring and the Summer, Hke sisters twain. 

As, wending their way thro' sweet banks of flowers, 

They hsten with rapture to each passing strain 

That Nature from bird and stream lavishly pours : 

And then the sad Autumn — his crown all of sere, 

His mantle of withered leaves strown on the gale. 

As he weeps his last tears o'er the corse of the year, 

When in silence it lies in the leaf-buried vale ! 

Oh ! let me see this once again, 

Nor let the mortal's prayer be vain !" 

" What pledge have I that thou wilt come 

Back again to thy Spirit-home ?" 

" My faith — my life, — oh, all on earth 

I have, or deem that life is worth — " 

" I ask not pledge of earth to prove," 

Answered the Spirit, " mortal's love ; 

For with you 'tis all weak and frail, 

Like blossom trembling in the gale. 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 103 

Or waving, like the downy spray, 

Ere for ever in mist it passetli away ; 

No — give me back that magic ring, 

For certain pledge thou wilt return 

Ere Night spreads out her sable wing 

To cloud the glories of the morn :" 

Kissing the circlet, bright of gold. 

Whose burnished hues shone far and near, 

Like the serpent's crest of ghstening fold. 

Erect in the hour of death and fear. 

He gave it back ; — " Now — now I fly 

Back to the realms of earth and sky ; 

The earth, like a paradise, stretched to receive 

In her bosom all loveliness heaven can give ! 

Joy — ^joy — now I wing for the earth and the air — " 

The reply of the spirit was — " Mortal, Beware /" 

And scarce had passed that ominous word, 

"When, wending on his upward track, 

This song, in accents Cormac heard. 

So sweet they almost wooed him back : — 

The Spirit-Bridal. 

" Go — gather the diamonds that float through the waves. 
All sparkling with light through the long summer's day ; 
And let ocean give up from her hiddenmost caves 
Every gem she holds purest and brightest of ray. 



104 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

To deck with their sheen 
The fair brow of our queen 
For the bridal of Spirit and Mortal — Away ! 

" And twine with the garland the beam of the moon, 
As she trembhngly kisses the water at even, 
Impearling the new-born flowers of June 
With her own light that flows hke a river, thro' heaven ; 

And blend with the wreath 

Honor, Passion, and Faith, 
To mortal, the purest and holiest given. 

" And with the beam mingle the hues that the bow 
From its watery prism in harmony flings. 
Emblazoned with colors as radiant as though 
They had flashed from a wave of the Seraphim's wings ; 

Let every ray be 

As bright as ye see 
The Sun, when at morn from the Ocean he springs. 

" Then weave her a robe from a wi-eath of the foam 
That the Storm-Spirit dashes in sport on the shore, 
And braid it with pearls from the mermaid's green home 
Ye'll find deep in the wave, 'neath its sapphire floor ; — 

And the bridal-robe twine 

With that rich golden line 
That the summer-sun flings on the water, like ore. 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 105 

" Take for her chariot the amber ye find 
All fresh from the night-mourning sea-bird that weeps ; 
And give her, for steeds, the fleet wings of the wind 
As over the Ocean in winter he sweeps — 

Haste, Spirits — away 

From the regions of Day, 
To depths, where the Dolphin in revelry leaps. 

" And then for her chaimt, let the waves clap their hands, 
And their anthem exiiltingly send to the skies. 
As they laughingly break on the golden ribbed sands, 
Each gushing its tribute of joy ere it dies — 

Quick — for ere nightfall. 

Shall echo this crystal hall 
To spirit and wave as they blend their sweet harmonies !" 



Now morning pours her golden light 
In streams through vale, o'er mountain-height, 
And Cormac, once on earth again, 
Re-weaves Affection's shattered chain 
And Memory's, that absence gave 
In fragments to the silver wave — 
The Spirit's gone, and all the man 
Returns to kindle heart and vein ; 
5* 



106 THE ENCHANTED RINO. 

While earth's sweet mem'ries, one by one, 

Teem in his throbbing soul again — 

As weaiy bird from far-off clime 

Returns, when Winter's reign is o'er, 

To hail again sweet Summer's prime. 

Basking upon its well-loved shore. 

So wandered his enraptured eye, 

From earth to wave — from wave to sky, 

Draining that sweet, inspiring cup 

That Memory's own hand held up. 

Each drop, a link to bind that chain 

The enchantress wove too fast again — 

Yes, there was the Morning — in colors all dight 

She had borrowed from flow'r-strewn vale and the height 

Of tbe mountain ; where, throned upon many a fold 

Of verdure, she sate in her vesture of gold ; 

Her sceptre of light — her tiara of flowers 

Resplendent with jewels from Night's dewy showers — 

And the birds, too, were there, all exultingly springing 

From their air-hanging nests through the clouds that 

gave way. 
As upward they soared, to their tumult of singing, 
Sweet as echo e'er gave to the bowers of May — 
And the flowery earth — the air, and the water 
Were sending aloft to the throne of the skies. 
That ocean of incense that Earth's fairest daughter, 



THE ENCHANTliD KING. 10*7 

Sweet Morning had culled from her own Paradise ; — 

For the dew, like a diadem, circled the flower, 

And the merrie bird sang from his moss-covered bower, 

Every new-born odor its censer was swinging. 

And the lark, Nature's matin-bell, merrily ringing ! 

Then slow, hke a vision, passed Morning away 

Her tenderness merged in the glories of Day ; 

And the light rays, that trembled, like hue on the feather, 

When Morning commenced her bright garland to gather, 

Now clustered in powder to form a crown 

When the Sun from his golden tent looks sultrily down — 

And over him radiantly hung the warm noon. 

Her bright mantle wove by the fair hand of June, 

Its texture was formed of the Summer's blue haze. 

And inwrought with gold of the Sun's brightest rays — 

While above spread the blue vault like palace some 

hand 
Had raised for its God, in a far sunny land. 
Bright clouds piled the fabric with many a fold. 
Its columns were air-himg — its portals of gold ; 
And its base was the mountain etei-nal, that ne'er 
Yet trembled to tempest in ocean or air ! 
And the flower all languidly drooped on its stem, 
And frolicked the bee 'round each beautiful gem 
That Morn, in her flight, from her zone had untwined 
To brighten the path of the sweet summer- Avind — 



J 08 T HE E N C 11 A N T ED MI N G . 

Now faded the splendors of Noon, and the Day 
Like a vision of glory, passed quickly away, — 
A vision, oh ! such as might rapture the eyes 
Of Seraphim, ev'n in their own starry skies. 
Where day unto day, and night unto night 
Giveth answer in language of undying light, 
While they gaze on the blent hues of rainbow and sun, 
For ever around the invisible One ! 
Yes, the Noon passed away, and sweet Eve, like a maid, 
That mourns her love in the sepulchre laid, 
Put on her dusk veil, that over the flowers 
Crept softly, like mists of in^nsible showers ; 
For a shade was on all, and the earth seemed to weep 
O'er the pall Evening spread on her children in sleep, 
Closing their soft lids, as never again 
To wake at the spell of air, sunshine or rain ; 
And Eve, in her turn, gave way to the splendors 
That Night to Creation in deep homage renders. 
With the moon and the stars all like slaves in her train 
Wa\ing like harvest of gold in the grain ! 
There was silence above, and below, and around. 
And the worshipper's ear vainly paused for a sound. 
The wave of a leaflet, or even a breath 
Might say. Earth was not the dark Valley of Death ! 
Hark ! heard he not one ? Yes, the lone nightingale, 
As her night-chaunt of plaintiveness sweeps through 
the vale, 



THE ENCHANTED RING. 109 

Like spirit keeping watch with its mournful numbers, 
While Night folds her wing in her dark, dreamless 
slumbers. 

Scarce had he heard the mournful lay 
(Sad requiem of the by-gone Day), 
When, like a torrent, broke on him 
Remembrances all dark and dim, 
Confused, as fragments of the sky 
On stormy day in ocean lie — 
The Enchanted ring — the water-sprite — 
The solemn pledge to her he'd given, 
That, ere the curtain of the Night 
Had folded in the dreams of Heaven, 
He would return ; — all — all come back. 
Like lightning on its fiery track ; — 
The heaving hope — the fear — the joy — 
Swept through his soul, to blast — destroy ! 
He looked to heaven ; the moonlight pale 
Scarce bordered midnight's sable veil. 
Tinting the mountain with that hue 
That crystallized the sleeping dew — 
As thouo'h an adder stunjr his vein. 
Cormac starts, and breaks the chain 
Of dreamy thoughts that fixed his eye 
In rapture spell-bound on the sky — 



110 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

But hark ! what sounds are those that yonder 

Break on the ear witli the might of thunder ; 

Sounds so ominous and drear 

They almost stun the hstening ear ? 

Nearer and nearer on they come ; — 

'Tis the clash of the wave in its terrible boom, 

As it breaks in destruction and wrath on the shore, 

Was all beauty and calmness a moment before ! 

Was it the Spirit's vengeance gave 

Such fury to the crested wave ? 

His broken pledge that lent the might 

Of tempest to the waking night ? 

He stays — he asks not — with the speed 

Of storm-wing o'er the bending reed. 

He rushes to the spot, where first 

He heard the promise ; — ^blest or curst, 

He recks not which — he asks not why, 

For he feels the hour is come — to die ! 

And there — oh ! sight appaUing — there — 

(Like Death-hound crouching in its lair) 

The haggard form, with garment torn 

And hair dishevelled to the blast. 

As he had seen her on that morn, 

His eyes on earth had looked their last 

To do her bidding, met his eye ; — 

The Enchanted Ring she held on high, 



THE ENCHANTED RING. Ill 

The pledge of Cormac's broken faith ; — 

" Now, by that furious water-wraith 

Thou'st summoned from her darksome cave, 

Mortal ! yon' water is thy grave !" 

And now the high waves, tempest-tost, 

Come trembling onward to the shore, 

E'en like a wild, disordered host 

That rallies 'mid the battle's roar 

It's broken columns ; while the white 

Spray, shivered hke a banner-sheet 

That reels amid the maddening fight, 

Where foes in deadly grapple meet. 

Tosses, in shattered fragments high, 

Its folds of foam 'twixt earth and sky ; — 

With smile that played like flickering light 

Of dying lamp at dead of night; — 

" I am the Sprite," she said ; " Behold 

The Sprite, whose beauty thou hast seen 

Enshrined beneath those waves where gold 

And emerald crowned the Naiad Queen ; 

Oh ! vain amid this haggard form 

Those lineaments of light to trace — 

Vain as amid yon' bursting storm. 

To catch one glimpse of heaven's bright face — 

But thou hast disobeyed — forsworn 

A Spirit's proffered love in scorn, 



112 THE ENCHANTED RING. 

Disowned the feeling — rent the tie 

That gave thee Immortality ; 

And though the treasures of earth and sky 

And water, in love were before thee laid, 

Fool ! thou hast chosen thy doom — to die. 

And clung to thine earth, where all things fade !" 

Nor more he heard or saw ; for now 

A heavy trance comes o'er his brow — 

Heavy and dull as that we feel 

When Death for ever sets his seal — 

The waves in lashing fury come. 

Like spectres, on in their shrouds of foam, 

Wrapping him each in its snowy wreath. 

Fit cerement for the halls of Death ! 

And, as he sinks, lo ! this the sound 

That spreads, like mystic dirge, around ; — 

The Spirit-Dirge. 

Fare-thee-well — Fare-thee-well ! 

Like Music from shell 
Thy spirit hath passed from Decay's dark cell ; 

And down in the deep 

Oh ! soft be thy sleep, 
With the Moon to watch o'er thee, and Spirits to weep ! 

Wail — wail for the Dead 



THE ENCHANTED KING. 113 

On his watery bed, 
Life's quiver is broken — its arrow is sped ! 

As the hght of the Sun 

Parts when Day is done, 
So passeth Man's spirit when Life's goal is won — 

Of the stars that at eve 

Their gay bowers leave 
For the Midnight a tissue of radiance to weave ; . 

Ere the Night fall 

In her cloudy pall, 
Not a single star will ye see of them all — 

E'en so, one by one, 

All faded and wan, 
Passeth away the brief morning of Man ; — 

Like dew from the flower, 

Sun-glance from the shower, 
And Time herself from Eternity's hour ? 

Like sound from the bell, 

Like grief from the knell 
We toll for the loved in their narrow-built-cell ; — 

So the soul to the Giver, 

As wave from the river 
To Ocean, flight taketh — away — and — for ever ! 



114 



EILEEN AROON;* 

A LEGEND OF IRELAND. 

[The beautiful Irish air, bearing the above title, is said to have 
originated from the following incidents.] 

Sunset's bright clouds are tinting with their dolphin- 
hues the West ; 
And peace is spread o'er heav'u and earth, sweet 

foretaste of that rest 
Awaits the blessed in the grave, when Life is past and 

gone, 
And draws its twilight-curtain 'round, like the set of a 

summer-sun — 
And groups of clouds are gathering to bid the sun 

" Farewell !" 
In his tent of gold and purple spread, where daylight's 

glories dwell : 
With their massive piles of light and hue, for their God 

they weave a crown 
That burns with spirit-glory on, 'till his last ray goes 

down ; 

* Sweet treasure of my heart. 



EILEEN ARO ON . 115 

And strew his path with brightness such as ev'ning 

scarce can dim, 
All lustrous as the shadows of God's own bright 

Seraphim — 
How like the image of his God to man, that glorious 

sun, 
Though palled in storm and darkness, still the same 

unchanging One ; 
We dare not look upon his glory through the 

summer's-day. 
But, like the Cherub veiled, we turn our guilty eyes 

away — 
Fountain of hght and joy ! whose effluence is felt 

where'er 
The warm sky spreads its sea of blue, or breathes the 

summer-air ; 
Thou gladd'st alike the human heart, and the depths of 

the scented flower. 
Just waking from the dreams of Spring to revel its 

balmy hour ; — 
The mount, the vale, the sea, the stream, yea, heav'n 

and earth proclaim 
Thee, the great type of God himself, the glory of His 

name ! 
The summer-sun was sinking with a soft and mellow 

power, 



116 EILEEN AROON. 

The waves were hushed upon the stream, the leaves 

upon the flower ; 
With calm and drooping wing the bird hied to its moss- 
built nest, 
And sank to slumber, as it trilled its vesper to the 

West- 
There lay a holy peacefulness on ev'ry object 'round. 
And Nature tuned her solemn hymn of ev'ry passing 

sound ; 
The bird's low note — the rustling leaf — the gushing of 

the stream, — 
All formed a melody might lull e'en an angel's dream. 
And bring to earth again that holy Sabbath from the 

skies 
That fled our world for aye when Sin to Man lost 

Paradise. 
Alone within her garden-bower sate the fair Eileen^ 
Fairer by far than any flow'r that clustered there, I 

ween ; 
For, pale as virgin-snow, the lily's hue was on her brow, 
And vermeil dyed her cheek, as roses blush at the night- 
bird's vow — 
Yet, there were thought and sadness there, the early 

trace we find 
When Passion woes the virgin-heart and leaves its 
scathe behind : 



EILEEN AROON. Il7 

Like music on tV -^lian that the winds in passing fling, 
And, dying, leave an echo sad still trembling on the 

string ; 
So sad, that though you heard the lay in joy and 

rapture speak. 
You'd think the strings that echoed it in utterance must 

break — 
Oh ! such the young heart's music is, and such its 

earliest tone. 
And scarce these bells have rung their first peal, ere 

their mirth is gone ! 
And Eileen gazed upon the sun, a tear bedimmed her 

eye 
As she watched him slowly sinking down the glowing 

western sky ; 
For parted friends and sundered hearts in heav'n and 

earth behold 
Types of dear ties long rent, and feelings long estranged 

and cold ; 
For a clouded star or moonbeam, and a faded flower or 

leaf. 
Revive long-buried dreams, — they may be dreams of joy 

or grief — 
And sad the words that fell from her, as, looking on the 

sun. 
The slowly gath'ring twilight told her day was well- 
nigh gone ; 



118 EILEEN AROON. 

" Farewell, farewell ! thy parting beams, as they faintly 

gild the sky, 
Fall sadly on the heart, like those that light the dying 

eye; 
And, with them, pass to an unknown land the memories 

in this. 
That have numbed the soul with sadness, or enraptured 

it with bliss— 
There's not a smile we've looked upon, and not a tear 

we've shed. 
Not a sweet word we've heard in Life, or muttered o'er 

the Dead ; 
Yes, all the holy thoughts within our lonely hearts that 

dwell. 
Are centred in thy parting light — read in thy last 

farewell ; 
Like those, who, in the graveyard, read the lines of 

Love's own hand. 
And wake again the living from that silent Spectre- 
land—" 
And scarcely had she spoken, when there stood within 

the bower. 
The one who lent a sadness deepest to that holy hour ; 
"Nay, why so sad, my Eileen P'' said the youth, as 

fondly pressed, 
The maiden's brow he kissed, that lay reclined upon his 

breast ; 



EILEEN ARO ON. 119 

" 'Twas not with tears thou met'st me, when, in happier 

days than now, 
Thine eye reflected all the truth that spoke in Love's 

young vow ; 
No, no, thy smile was gladness then, and a sweet music 

came 
From ev'ry sound through day and night, that syllabled 

thy name, 
As the fragrant breath of Summer wafts to the lone 

exile's strand, 
The odors that remind him of his far-off native land — 
Oh, Eileen ! while I cling to thee, I feel that thou'rt 

mine own, 
To one, who in this cold bleak world, without thee, were 

alone ; 
Through ev'ry change my guiding-star, my friend in 

ev'ry fate, 
To smile on all my joys, or weep when I am desolate — 
To hear thee — see thee — call thee mine, is dearer far to 

me, 
Than even the lonely night-star to the mariner at sea !" 
She answered not her lover ; but the burning tears, that 

start 
And fall upon his bosom, speak the language of the 

heart ; 
That deq), unuttered language, that the eye can speak 

alone, 



120 EILEEN AROON. 

Like spirit-music heard far off at night, from hands 

unknown — 
She raised her head, — her eyes on his were fixed with 

that deep truth 
Which glads in this cold world awhile, alone the heart 

of youth ; 
And the word, half-trembling on her lip, was broken with 

a sigh. 
Whose image spoke in the gushing tear that dimmed 

her full, dark eye : — 
" Thou deem'st me sad — To-night we part ; but not as 

yonder sun 
Parts from the mountain and the vale to-day he shone 

upon ; — 
The flower that shuts its leaves, or ere the parting ray 

declines. 
Shall bloom afresh to-morrow, when the dawn of 

morning shines; 
And the stream that sleeps as Twilight pours her 

shadows on its breast. 
Shall wreathe again its waves of gold when dayhght 

streaks the East ! 
But parted hearts — oh ! what are they whose only hope 

is given 
To break loved ties on earth, perhaps to meet again in 
Heaven ? 



EILEEN A ROOK. 121 

And what their lot ? — the faint — faint hope that Death 

at last may come 
To seal the faith by earth refused — yet treasured in the 

tomb !" 
" And wilt thou, Eileen, think of me when gone ?" the 

youth replied ; 
And wilt thou in mine absence, keep thy faith as 

'troth6d bride ? 
And wilt thou, like those flowers that close their perfume 

from the night, 
Reserve its truth and faith, my Eileen, for the return of 

light ?" 
" Ask all the deep-tried faith of woman — all her heart 

can give ; 
Her passion, hope, despair, triumph — whether she die or 

live ; 
And call upon the noblest name can bless the human 

heart 
In the joyous hour when lovers meet — the anguished 

when they part, 
Thou'lt find me true — Yes, Coulin ! true as though the 

holy spell 
Of Priest had called down blessings from the heaven 

where they dwell ; 
But 't is not mine to give my hand as bride, nor mine to 

claim 

6 



122 EILEEN AROON. 

For husband, when my kindred frown in anger on his 

name !" 
The youth was silent: Thoughts that burned deep — 

deep in his stung soul, 
Rose to his lip, half husbed, half spoken, while the tear 

that stole. 
Had not the calm of grief that soothes the troubled soul 

it speaks. 
But the sultriness of summer-rain, as the cloud in 

thunder breaks — 
" Is this thy last farewell, Eileen ? and is it thus we part? 
And must I live to see another clasped to that dear 

heart ? 
The exile's thought — the captive's chain, oh ! Eileen, I 

could bear. 
Though my daily meal were famine, and my cup the 

burning tear ! 
This — this — and more ! but say not that my lot on 

earth should be 
Like those who tread Life's waste, and live alone in 

memory ; 
As exiles pass from Paradise, and weep to think those 

strains 
That came from Angel-harps are hushed for ever o'er her 

plains — ^" 
She looked on him in sadness, while the shadows deep 

that fell, 



EILEEN AROON. 123 

(Dark images that vigil keep within the heart's lone cell) 
Lent holiness to beauty, like ^he passing shadow shed 
In Life's hist moment, o'er the brow and visage of the 

Dead— 
" Then let us part in sadness, Eileen ! as though we'd 

never met ; 
The Sun, whose noon is darkness, must in clouds and 

anger set — 
Yes, part as those to whom their hearts nor joy nor hope 

hath given, 
Whose long — long day hath never known a single ray 

from heaven ; 
Oh ! had we never loved — the fear — the danger this 

hour brings — 
The anguish of the last hope that, 'mid all that's wrecked, 

still clings 
To the last spar our fate hath flung upon Life's stormy 

wave ; — 
We'd not have known, but sunk content to the cold and 

peaceful grave — 
Then part we now ! I dare not hear thy parting-tone, 

nor bear 
The thoughts that each loved tone revives in madness 

and despair ; 
I love thee, Eileen ! may the God who gave us hearts to 

love, 



124 EILEEN AROON. 

Bless that last vow, where Truth and Faith alone reside 
—above !" 

Their meeting was in sorrow, and their parting was in 
fear ; 

Words answered not the maiden's vow, 'twas sealed by- 
Passion's tear ; 

Night brought back dreams to both, of joys for ever 
flown. 

And Morn waked to their hearts a world wherein they 

were alone. 
^ % ^ ^ % ^ 

The storm is not more cheerless to the drifting wild- 
bird's wing, 
Nor Autumn's breath more chilling to the flow'r that 

felt the Spring, 
Nor the sinking bark more hopeless, when the wave and 

tempest rave, 
Than parted hearts, who feel their only shelter is the 

gi-ave — 
And Eileen's now alone : the light of other days is past. 
She feels upon Life's darkest hour, her eyes have looked 

their last ; 
The Present hath no joy — the Future like a dark waste 

lies, 
And the heart, like bark dismasted, stands alone 'neath 

stormy skies ; 



EILEEN AROON. 125 

Well, better thus to sink at once — to break ere ev'ry 

string 
Of joy and hope be snapped to which in this cold world 

we cling. 
Oh ! happy they, who've seen the worst — the darkest 

Life can send, 
The hopeless heart — the blighted joy — the false and 

heartless friend, 
AVhose sky can give no blacker hue than that they now 

behold. 
Whose hearts no winter darker than the Present, bleak 

and cold ; 
Who've gazed upon the stars of Life, and seen them one 

by one 
Blotted by gath'ring Night, until the last pale watcher's 

gone ; 
And turned from heav'n to earth, and found Life's 

gath'ring gloom 
Was darker far, than that which hope assigned the 

cheerless tomb ! 
Calmly they stand, resigned to fate ; like those, who, 

'mid the shock 
Of sky and wave, all silently survey the distant rock. 
Where the tempest's madd'ning fury drives them 

steerless, hopeless on, 
'Till the last wild scream that strikes the heaven, tells 

them all is o-one ! 



126 EILEEN AROON. 

And Eileen's now alone ! yet no ! There's not a light 

that breaks — 
A passing sound, but Memory her mournful language 

speaks ; 
For broken hearts live in the Past, like weeping eyes 

that trace 
On the cold tomb-stone, the form they loved, the smile 

that lit the face ; 
And Coulin's image still was there, like the light that 

falls from far 
Deep on our hearts, from the holy urn of Ev'ning's 

silver star ; 
And it spoke to her in sorrow, and it knelt with her in 

prayer. 
And she felt there was a rapture, less in joy than in 

despair — 
But there's a deeper pang, perhaps, than the parting 

moment bears — 
A pang too oft atoned by life or the heart's own 

burning tears, 
A pang, that, once endured, for ever quenches hope and 

calm. 
Too strong for life, and scarce in death the martyr finds 

a balm — 
.'Tis when the name we love as life, and cherish as our 

own. 



EILEEN AROON. 127 

Within whose holy spell is centred all we've felt and 

known 
Of happiness, is slandered to the trusting heart and ear, 
And falsehood taints the purity our soul believed in 

here. 
A year had passed — no tidings came, and not a word 

was spoken 
By those around her of that name — that loved tie they 

had broken ; 
By hps, save her's, that name unuttered — no eye, save 

her's, to weep 
O'er that lonely grave they'd made her heart, and that 

dead one there asleep — 
A long — long year had passed, and yet poor Eileen's 

heart was true, 
As the mountain-snow doth mirror back each passing 

rainbow-hue, 
Yet scarcely lingered there the hope that even the 

dying eye 
Feels, once again to see the parted ere the hour to die — 
*The chain of silence now is shaken, and the spell that 

dwelt so long 
Around the maiden, is dissolved by Murmur's busy 

tongue, 

* An Irish proverb. 



128 EILEEN AKOON. 

And they whispered in her ear a tale of malice' darkest 

hue, 
That hope would strive to think it false, though fear 

believes it true. 
They tell Eileen, that absence hath a charm to soothe to 

sleep 
For ever hearts and eyes that Love liatli too oft taught 

to weep ; — 
That change can give forgetfulness, and other eyes can 

win 
From the heart the faith and warmth that passion hides 

so deep within, 
That Love himself his changes hath, ev'n as the passing 

air 
Which fans the flower to-day, to-morrow leaves it dead 

and bare, 
And, like the bird of passage, seeking change of clime 

and sky. 
Love suns himself in every beam that lights a lovelier 

eye! 
And Eileen hears the tale that mounts, like madness to 

her brain, 
And strives to crusli out Coulin's image from her heart — 

but vain ! 
Vain for the heart to blot out that which Passion's hand 

hath writ. 



EILEEN AROON. 129 

Or break the bands that memory 'round the holy past 

hath knit, 
'Tis the writing on Belshazzar's wall, and man may well 

despair 
To blot the characters of light a God hath written there ! 
False — false to her ! oh ! would that ere she'd given her 

heart to him, — 
Ere, as now, that trusting heart was broken — that bright 

eye was dim, 
She'd known that man was faithless, and that vows of 

breath were made, 
And Love himself, like star-light in the water, but — a 

shade — 
And Eileen's now deserted, and her hdart is broken — 

lone, 
And the reed she leant on, pierced it, and the ^^ice, 

whose well-loved tone, 
Like waters, heard by moonlight, came with tidings from 

that far 
Far flowery world Love hath built beneath his evening- 
star. 
Comes back on her, like those same waters, heaved and 

tossing high, 
Whose moaning bears the tale of death and shipwreck 

to the sky — 



130 EILEEN AROON. 

Yes, yes, she feels the tale is true — " Coulin ! I had 

been blest 
Had thine own hand closed Eileen's eyes to their long — 

eternal rest. 
Had thine own hand wrung the last drop that warms 

this breaking heart, 
Than live to find thee false as now — or met thee — thus 

to part 1 
Oh ! farewell, Truth, Religion's light — all that we hope 

or fear. 
The Faith would light the future and the joys that wait 

us here ; — 
Farewell to every vow — to every tie that Passion binds 
'Round woman's heart they sport with as the ocean with 

the winds ! 
Fafewell — farewell ! 'twas but a dream, — but such, oh ! 

ne'er was given. 
Save only to those hearts whose joys had made this 

earth their heaven, — 
A dream of sunshine and of flowers would woo an angel's 

eye 
E'en from the God-made beauties that adorn his own 

bright sky !" 
The spell's dissolved — the vow is broken — broken in one 

brief word ; — 



EILEEN AROON. 131 

The vow that Love had breathed to her, and Faith 

lierself had heard ; — 
And Eileen lives — yes, thus, may live the heart still in 

despair. 
As the harp may hang, though music's spirit dwell no 

longer there — 
There is no joy for Eileen, now, — no light is in her eye, 
The night to her is not more dark than noonday's azure 

sky;— 
Nature hath closed on her that page she loved to read 

so well. 
Where all that's fair in heaven and earth in holy beauty 

dwell ; — 
The stream hath lost its music, and the violet its hue, 
And the stars no longer speak to her from heaven's 

depths of blue. 
The bird is silent, and there is no freshness in its wing, 
And Eileen hath forgot to feel, like a dull and senseless 

thing ! 
Unheedingly she sits like one whose dreams are far 

away 
In other worlds, where Truth and Love can never know 

decay ; 
Her once bright eyes are full of tears, anon they are as 

dry 
As the parched earth of the desert 'neath a cloudless, 

burning-sky, 



132 EILEEN ARGON. 

And her lips are seen to move, but still they mutter, aye, 

the same 
Dear spell that conjures all the j^ast — 'tis false — false 

Couliu's name 1 
They've plucked the flower; — 'twere better far, than 

thus to leave behind 
Its dry and withered leaves a prey to every passing wind, 
T' have rent it leaf by leaf from off the stem whereon it 

grew, 
Than leave it, thus, to hnger 'mid its fragrance and its 

hue — 
And Falsehood well hath phiyed his part, and plausible 

the tale 
Hath 'reft that heart of all its treasures — turned that 

cheek so pale ; 
For not contented with the wreck of happiness and heart, 
Her fable's but the parent to a fouler — darker art ; 
'Tis not alone estrangement from the heart was once her 

own. 
From a heart so true, it loved her of all here — the best — 

alone — 
They seek ; but give her to another ; — a heart so cold — 

so dead ; — 
As well they might have placed a corse at altar-step to 

wed ! 
In vain we listen for the nightingale's fond midnight- 
lay. 



EILEEN AROON. 133 

When the Gul's leaves are faded, and their beauty's 

past away — 
Can the harp-string yield an echo when touched by a 

stranger's hand, 
Can its soul pour forth its music from its own wild 

spirit-land. 
No — no, the melody that woke the soul with master-key 
To deeds of olden time must die, like hushed wind o'er 

the sea ! 
But the world is dark and dreary, and Eileen's now 

alone, 
And the summer-air hath not a breath nor human voice 

a tone 
Can give her back those early dreams of life that once 

she felt. 
When her own heart held the idol at whose shrine she 

daily knelt. 
They tell the maiden she must wed — that she's forgotten 

now, 
And they mock her pallor with the rose they 'twine 

around her brow, 
And they tell her still she's beautiful as in Love's long 

by-gone prime, 
When the bells of her bright morning rang out with 

their merry chime. 
And her path was all of flowers, and her summer — one 

l©ng day, 



134 EILEEN AROON. 

And her own heart mirrored beauties that her eye saw 
far away — 

Oh ! vain to twine again the garland 'round youth's 
sunny braid, 

To weave past hours once more of leaves whose destiny's 
to fade, 

Revive the ray that kindled once so brightly in the eye, 

And summon back the hues of morn to gild our sunset- 
sky ; — 

Vain, vain as they who look in silence on the clay-cold 
face. 

And think the soul and speech of Life here once again 
to trace ! 

And Eileen feels 'tis mockery to say she's lovely now, 

That light, as erst is in her eye, or grace upon her brow ; 

For she feels that both are faded now — yes, faded, oh ! 
how soon ! 

Like early jflowers that die or ere they taste the breath 
of June — 

They speak to her of love, and still they press on her the 
theme, 

And Eileen sits, unheedingly, as though it were a 
dream ; — 

The very word — the bridal-hour — the blithe and joyous 
throng. 

The merrie bells — the blooming wreath — the brides- 
maids' welcome-song ; 



EILEEN AROON. 135 

Yes, all is there before lier, even as Fancy's self can 

limn, 
But she strains her eye for one alone, and calls alone on 
him ! 

They hare decked her robe with flowers, and her hair 

with many a gem, 
But her eyes are cold and dull, they have no light, alas ! 

hke them, 
And friends are pressing 'round her now with greetings 

kind and warm, 
And knightly eyes are looking now with envy on that 

form. 
And they wish her long and happy daj-s, for Eileen's 

now a bride ; — 
But they see not the slow — unbidden tear she turns 

away to hide — 
Oh ! better have laid that trusting heart in the cold — cold 

bed of Death, 
Than in Life's last moment, thus, have wrung from its 

core a perjured faith ; 
They have made it swear a vow to God that it never 

can fulfil. 
While love reigns in that broken heart or Life's warm 

pulses thrill — 
Well, mirth and revelry are there, and the bridegroom 

whispers low 



136 EILEEN AROON. 

Vows that might well have called the blush to another's 

cheek and brow, — 
Yet Eileen answers not — no, no ! she sits, like a statue 

there 
All silent, as the night-winds pass o'er Autumn's 

branches bare. 
Now mirth and song wax high, and eyes flash light and 

joy around. 
And merrily the dancers gay with measure beat the 

ground ; 
When suddenly a pause is made to hear the strains that 

rise 
From a minstrel old, who stands aloof in meek and 

lonely guise. 

" And is it thus we part ? 

Eileen Aroon ! 
Wilt thou, then, break this heart ? 

Eileen Aroon ! 
'Mid hours of grief and fear, 
If I but thought thee near 
Sorrow forgot her tear, 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Well, well, 'twas but a dream ; 

Eileen Aroon ! 



EILEEN AROON. 137 

Hearts, like the sunny stream, 

Eileen Aroon ! 

A moment in light may play. 

But, ere the noon of Day, 

In darkness they glide away ; 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Yet, would I dream again, 

Eileen Aroon ! 
Though Love and Hope were vain — 

Eileen Aroon ! 
Though of the garland twined 
Scarce one withered leaf we find, 
Yet, Memory's left behind, 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Would I had died for thee, 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Ere I had lived to see 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Truth herself pledge her vow 

With cold heart and shameless brow 

Or meet one as false as thou, 

Eileen Aroon ! 

Thou hast broken Love's fetter, 

Eileen x^roon ! 



138 EILEEN AROON. 

But can one love better, 

Eileen Aj-oon ! 
Than he who remembers yet 
That last lovely sunset 
Where Eileen and Coulin met, 

Eileen Aroon ?" 

Hushed is the minstrel's harp ; — its tones are still as 

though they ne'er 
Had wakened Eileen's slumbering heart, long frozen 

by despair ; — 
Yes, hushed the harp ; — and many eyes in wonderment 

survey 
That old and trembling form that sings youth's saddest — 

sweetest lay ; 
But a wild scream dissolves the charm — 'Tis Eileen that 

they hear, 
As she clasps her hands, and gazes on that hoary form 

with fear ; — 
The minstrel's robe is doffed — before them Coulin 

stands confest, 
A moment — and he clasps Eileen to that fond and 

faithful breast ! 
One kiss — one burning kiss of Youth and Love, whose 

rays 
Re-kindle now that embered flame that burned in 

by-gone days. 



EILEEN AROON. 139 

Is madly pressed upon that clieek, paler and paler 

growing, 
As life's last drop, at every pulse, is ebbing fast and 

flowing ; — 
Still parts her hair from that fair brow — supports her 

sinking head ; — 
Upon her name he madly calls — Eileen Aroon is dead ! 



140 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 

AN IRISH LEGEND. 

Clanawley's towers are ruined and lone, 

Not a sound in her halls is heard, 
Save the grass, as it waves o'er the mouldering stone, 
Or the ivy that mournfully answers the moan 

Of the ominous midnight-bird. 

No longer the minstrels of old Innisfail * 

Tune their harps at the festival board 
To the fair light of beauty, and chivalry's tale. 
When the Red Branch Knights | in harness and mail, 
Drank a pledge to Clanawley's proud lord ; 

For the curse of a Spirit hath been on those walls. 

Like the tempest, to smite and to slay ; 
And the shriek of the owl in her moss-covered halls, 
And the echo that speaks from the stone as it falls. 
Tells the tale of her long by-gone day — 

* An ancient name of Ireland. 

t An ancient order of chivalry in Ireland. 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 141 

Oh ! happy that day ; the last fair one that shone 

On those towers of statehest pride ; 
For never saw morning a gladher sun, 
Nor was bridegroom e'er gayer than he who had won 

Clanawley's fair child for his bride. 

For many a suitor had striven to gain 

In wedlock the sweet Kathleen, 
But their vows and their pledges alike were vain, 
For O'Moore, of all that chivalrous train, 

Was the gallantest knight I ween. 

And now ring out with a merrie peal 

The bells from the castle-wall ; 
And troops of Clanawley's clansmen leal 
Press on in their columns of flashing steel, 

Through battlement, tower and hall : 

And many a pledge they quaff full deep 

Both to lord and to ladye bright ; 
The minstrels, full many a chord they sweep ; 
Some eyes they sparkle, while others they weep 

At the tale of wandering Bjiight — 

" Now pledge me, Clanawley," the bridegroom cries, 
" A full, brimming goblet of wine ; 



142 THE SPIRIT -BRIDE GROOM. 

May Time, in his noiseless course, as he flies. 
Fling never a cloud to dim those bright eyes ! 
Clanawley ! to thee and to thine !" 

" And to me /" cried a voice ; " aye, to me and to mine 

Now pledge me, Sir Knights, one and all ; 
For tearful and dim are the eyes that now shine. 
And the beautiful leaves of the garlands ye twine 
Shall be withered ere midnight fall !" 

Like so many spectres, the guests they stand ; — 

Not a breath, not a whisper is heard ; 
'Tis as some Spirit from faerie land 
Had made, with a single wave of his wand, 
A grave of that festal board. 

Full many an eye with terror I ween 

Is turned, the guest to see ; 
A stalwart knight of warrior-mien 
Is beheld, all dight in armor as green 

As the Ocean itself can be — 

And the plume in his helmet it waves snowy white 

As the surf of the rock-beaten foam : 
" Oh ! com'st thou to hallow or curse, Sir Knight ! 
The bridal-knot with some mystic rite 

Thou'st brought from thine azure home ?" 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 143 

No answer he makes, the stranger so bold, 

As he stalks to the banquet-board, 
And silently raises the goblet of gold, 
While the guests stand, like spectres, aghast to behold, 

And wanders each hand to its sword. 

" Nay, never your hands on your swords, I pray !" 

Spake out the stranger, then ; 
" The first that uplifts his blade, I'll lay 
At my feet so low that the light of day 

Shall ne'er visit his eyes again !" 

"Sp' -it or Devil !" the bridegroom cried, 

As his sword flashed forth from its sheath : 

" Decline not the combat thy taunt hath defied ; — 

Draw, false-hearted lord ! whatever betide 
I reck not — no, though it be Death !" 

" Thou hast spoken it well, fair Knight ! Be thy doom 

The dark word that fell from thee now ; 
'Twere a pity. Sir Knight ! so dreary a tomb 
Should enfold thee now, when bright garlands bloom 
To twine for the bridegroom's brow." 

All blanched was the cheek of O'Moore, as there fell 
Those words of fate on his ear ; 



144 THE S I' I R I T - B R I D E G R O M . 

" Com'st thou to beard me from heaven or hell, 
With the breath of sprite or enchanter's spell ? 
False lord ! I defy thee here." 

Not a word from the figure there passed in reply 

To the threat of the young bridegroom ; 
But on with proud mien it swept noiselessly by, 
While trembled O'Moore at the light that his eye 
Sent forth from beneath his white plume. 

The bridegroom stood spell-bound and motionless : ne'er 

Was manhood so palsied as now ; 
While the figure swept onward he felt that the air 
Was as cold, as though Death were himself standing 
there : 

And the breath of his lips fanned his brow ! 

Now hushed was each harp that so late through the hall 

Resounded with chivalry's tale ; 
They mutter their prayers as they see on the wall 
The dark shadow pass ; while Clanawley and all, 

Like spectres, each moment wax pale ; 

With wonderment mute they still see it glide, 

Not a sound of its motion they hear ; 
Still onward it moves till it stands by the bride, 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 145 

And clasps her cold hand, and close at her side 
Its dark secret it tells in her ear. 

Her lips, how they tremble, how pale is her brow, 
As she feels the cold fan of his breath ; 

Is it a curse on her bridal-vow, 

Or a summons that warns fair Kathleen, that now 
Is the hour that dooms her to Death ? 

Dispelled is the trance that had bound hke a chain 

O'Moore, with its mystical ties ; 
To Kathleen he rushes, his bride to regain ; 
Cries the figure : — " Rash boy ! your attempt is but vain ; 

'Tis a Sj^irit your falchion defies !" 

With passion as reckless and fierce as the storm 

O'Moore rushes full on the Knight ; — 
His sword stays uplifted, and nerveless his arm. 
And he feels that around there's a spell to disarm 
Soul and falchion alike of their might. 

" Blame not, rash youth, for I told thee thy fate, 

Should'st thou dare thus my power to brave ; 
Thine arm, like an infant's, now shrinks from the weight 
Of thy sword, it was thine as warrior of late 
O'er thy foemau in triumph to wave ; 
1 



146 THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 

" She is mine — she is mine ; — aye, ever mine own ! 

The joys of thy bridal are past ; 
Change, minstrels ! your song to the dirge and the moan 
When in prayer ye kneel by the cold — cold stone, 

That over the Dead ye have cast !" 

All trembling and pale, the fair Kathleen, she lay 

In the arms of the bridegroom-sprite ; 
Unopposed, unresisted, he bears her away, 
Like a beautiful flower the sunshine of day 
Hath op'd but to wither at night. 

Now, frenzied with passion, O'Moore hurries on, 

Though he feels there's a seal on her dobm ; 
And a cloud never-setting hath darkened their sun. 
And his madness-flushed cheek is now grown as wan, 
As the fugitive-warrior's plume — 

" Mortal or Spirit ! whatever thou art ; 

One word — but one word I implore ! 
Let thy sword, like an ice-bolt, fall cold on my heart — 
Let me clasp my lost bride, e'en though now, when we 
part. 

To meet we are doomed never more !" 

Like the swimmer's last groan as the tempest sweeps by, 
Like the Autumn-leaf whirled in the air ; 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 147 

Like the lio-ht Summer-foam Ocean tosses on hiirli 
When the Storm-Spirit blots out the stars in the sky, 
Unheard falls the bridegroom's prayer — 

All hushed and unheard doth it fall ; for a sound 

Comes on, like the Ocean's far boom ; 
And the air doth itself seem all vocal around, 
And the strong echo shakes the tremulous ground 
As they list to these words of Doom — 

The Wave-Siyrites^ Sang. 

" We have come — we have come, from the depth of the 

water, 
Clanawley ! to wed to a Spirit thy daughter ; 
And to steal from her cheek those flowers that bloom 
On your earth, but to deck for the lovely their tomb ! 
Her brow shall be twined with the foam of the wave, 
And the gems of the garland we weave for Kathleen, 
Shall be ta'en from the depths of the bright coral-cave. 
Where are clustered the pearl, and the emerald green — 
Her couch shall be crystal, her bower be made 
Of flowers that Autumn's chill breath cannot fade ; 
And the moon and the stars of that world that rise, 
Shall be fed with the wavelet's innumerous dyes ; 
Shining on — shining on, like a summer-day's light, 



148 THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 

Ere the Sun of your world yields bis sceptre to Night — 

And harpings of Spirits shall soothe her soft sleep, 

Far sweeter than ever on mortal ear fell — 

And the voices of waves, from the cells of the deep, 

Shall re-echo the murmur that lies in the shell. 

Come then ! come down ! for thy bride-torch is 

lighted 
From the sheen of the waves, as they gambol and dance 
With mirth, that thy faith to a Spirit is plighted, 
And blest by the joy of thine own sunny glance — 
Oh ! talk not of earth, nor its odors that fling 
Balmy sweetness around, like the honey-bee's wing ; 
For as quickly they fade as the sunlight, that cheers 
Morning's bud, but to leave it to eve's dewy tears ; 
They fade and they wither, the odor and flower, 
Both blooming and dying in one little hour ! 
But with lis there's a Spirit unchangeably bright. 
That grief cannot wither, and death cannot blight, 
As fresh as the Spirit of waves, when they break 
On the flower-dyed shore of the silvery lake. 
Meeting and parting, hke friends who rejoice 
At the musical tones of a well-loved voice ! 
A Spirit that lives still unchangeably on, 
Un wrinkled by Time, by sorrow or tears — 
Still bright when all else is foded and gone 
Like the vanishing shadows of long-buried years — 



THE SPIRIT-BRIDEGROOM. 149 

Come down then, come down — for thy bride-bed is 

strown 
With pearls the whitest beneath the green wave ; 
And thy slumber we'll lull with the loveliest tone 
That echo to Music on Earth ever gave !" 

Now the rushing of waters is heard, and the boom 

Of the storm, as with madness and might 
It envelopes the castle in terror and gloom, 
And threatens to make it one wide-yawning tomb 
For the dead, on that fearful night ! 

And the storm it rages — the waters they rave 

In the tempest's dark pauses between ; 
The Maid is betrothed to the Sprite of the wave, 
And the Night-moaning Banshee weeps over the grave 
Of the lost and the lovely Kathleen. 



160 



THE DEATH-KISS. 

AN IRISH SUPERSTITION". 

There's feasting in the Chieftain's hall, the wassail-bowl 

goes round, 
And minstrelsy its song and tale sends forth with merrie 

sound, 
And the Chieftain's brow looks brighter than full many a 

day before, 
For Night will see his daughter bride to young Mac 

Connal More. 
And now at her mirror stands the fair, while many a 

serving maid 
Range the bright jewels o'er her brow, and twine the 

sunny braid — 
A sight, oh ! lovelier far, than e'er to mortal eye was 

given. 
Save when it rests in worship on a single star in heaven. 
She gazes on the mirror as the young Narcissus, when 
He looked upon the wave that gave his beauty back 

again ; 



THE DEATH-KISS. 161 

And like tlie youth, you would have thought the image 

that was there 
Had all this earth could ever give of beautiful and fair : 
That Fancy needed not to think an Angel-form had 

strayed 
From Heaven, and in that mirror's depth its resting-place 

had made ! 
Ah ! earth hath stars as heaven, and the mists that round 

them play 
Like the bluish haze that rests upon a lovely summer's 

day — 
Forewarn the young and beautiful their lot is grief and 

pain ; 
As that same haze that gilds the noon, ere eve may fall 

in rain : 
Fair girl ! as thou gazest on thy mirror's brightness, now, 
A death-chill hovers near thine heart — a shadow o'er thy 

brow ; 
The gems thou wearest wax as pale and dim as though 

they lay 
Clasped in the mine's embrace, and shut out from the 

light of day ; 
And thine eye is growing glazed and cold, and the lustre 

once it shed 
Is waning like a taper in the chamber of the Dead ! 
" Unbrace my girdle ! — 'Round my heart a weight is 

pressing sore : 



152 THE DEATH -KISS. 

Mine eyes grow dark — God ! is it Death ! Oh ! tell Mac 

Counal More 
My last — last word was breathed for him — for him I love 

alone ; 

Oh ! may he find another, true as I when I am gone !" 
****** 

Now tolls the castle-bell, but sot as blithely as of late ; 
And troops of mourners flock around the chieftain's castle- 
gate ; 
And the wild Caoine, ^ like leaves that murmur on the 

wintry gale. 
Sends far and near upon the wind its sad and stifled 

wail — 
A wail so sad, you would have thought the very winds 

sent forth 
Their requiem low and solemn for the beautiful of Earth ! 
Oh ! 'tis a melancholy sight to see the cold clay o'er 
The young so early dead who were all loveliness before. 
The dawn of a bright sun in clouds and darkness gulphed 

so soon. 
Which, had it run its course, oh ! might have worn a 

glorious noon ; 
A flower pulled, or ere it knew a single passing ray 
Of the light that warms and paints the leaf from the 

tender hand of Day ; 

* Irish crv. 



THE DEATH-KISS. 153 

A rainbow-liue just blotted out from the gentle summer- 
sky, 

So fleeting* that we see in it the doom of man — to die ! 

And yet so bright we'd almost think that in its bright- 
ness lay 

All that the hand of God could show of Heaven's 
eternal day. 

A star just glittering on the edge of evening's russet train, 

Sparkling in Heaven's loveliness ; but when we look 
again 

An envious cloud hath quickly passed, extinguishing for 
aye, 

The holy lamp that Xight had ht upon the tomb of Day! 

Well, let them go ; 'tis better thus in purity to die, 

Like clouds that melt in mist, or ere their journey thro' 
the sky 

Be half done ; better far to fall in young and guileless 
years, 

Than live a hfe of guilt to God — ourselves, of pain and 
tears. 

Who — who can weep the early dead ; — those angel-forms 
but given 

To hght the earth a moment with bright meteor-beams 
from heaven ; 

Sweet strains from angel-harpings, whose glad echo still 
is heard 

7* 



164 THE DEATH-KISS. 

In the music of the summer wind — the matin of the bird, 
And all the lovely sounds that earth affords ; oh ! what 

are they 
But the voices of the loved and dead, gone far — oh ! far 

away? 
And now with melancholy step the funeral array 
Of Eveleen, to the lone churchyard doth slowly wend its 

way; 
And prayers are muttered — eyes are weeping — mourners' 

hands are wrung, 
And the burden of the wild Caoine in sadd'ning chorus 

sung ; 
The autumn winds wail lonely, and the withered autumn 

leaf 
Doth sadly rustle through the air in answer to their grief ; 
And cypress-boughs are waving in the melancholy wind, 
Leaving as they pass, the groan of sorrow deep behind. 
Mac Connal More in silence walks by that dear maiden's 

bier, 
His arms are folded on his breast — his eyes without a tear : 
And his lips they move so silently you could not tell that 

there 
Grief breathed her solemn accents or the humbler tones 

of prayer ; 
But there's a quiver on the lip, and a shrouding of the eye 
That tells the struggle of the soul, oh ! more than the 

bursting sigh ; 



THE DEATH-KISS. 166 

A cold and fearful shudder, that like thunder in the sky, 
Forewarns the worn traveller, the tempest draweth nigh. 
And they ftiU — they fall — the strong man weeps the 

tears that children shed 
When first they look affrighted on the pale face of the 

dead. 
The purest tributes Nature gives to childhood's frolic- 
hour, 
Pure as the dew that feeds the drops of April's golden 

shower ! 
Oh ! weep not, youth ! for every tear you shed in 

sadness now • 

An angel weaves a flower undying to bind that Sister's 

brow. 
And a smile is on her lips, and a glad beam in her eye 
That tells the ransomed of the Saviour — it is sweet to 

die! 
Now halts the sad procession by the dark brink of the 

tomb, 
And mourners gather 'round the corse in their sable 

weeds of gloom. 
To hear the churchman's prayer ascend in tones so low 

and deep, 
For the soul of her, whose sorrows now in Abraham's 

bosom sleep. 
And the deep " Amen !" is faltered low from lips that 

scnrco onn sponk, 



156 T H E D E A T H - K I S S . 

While tlie burning tear flows silent down the warrior's 

pallid cheek ! 
" Ashes to ashes — dust to dust !" those solemn words 

the while 
Are uttered, and the clay upon the lonely dead they 

pile. 
The young and old kneel on the grave, and leave behind 

the dew 
Of tears that keep alive the bloom in flowers that they 

strew ; 
One long last look upon the grave — one prayer for her 

that's gone, 
And the tomb and tenant both are left in the drear 

churchyard alone ! 
Yet not alone — there is a Faith within the heart whose 

ties 
Live fresh and green as once they bloomed, though all 

around them dies, 
Green as the last bright leaf that clings to Autumn's 

faded bowser, 
And bringing back the buried dreams of its blooming 

Spring-tide hour, 
Decking her faded robe with hues of crimson and of 

gold; 
Spring's latest child still lasting through the Winter 

drear and cold ! 



THE DEATH-KISS. 157 

Yes, there's a Faith that cannot die ; — that hves, though 

ties be riven, 
And hearts be sundered, hke the stars eternally in 

heaven ; 
Whose light, though quenched by passing cloud, it for 

a moment dies, 
Yet, like the God who made them, shine for ever in the 

skies ! 
A Faith we cannot quench, nor break, for Religion's holy 

hand 
Around it sheds a j^ower it brings from yonder Better 

Land, 
That gives the broken heart the hope, its scattered 

feelings may 
Be centred in the light undying of Eternal Day ; 
As gleams of sunlight on the wave, when the storm 

rages high. 
Though broken by the waters, find their fountain in the 

sky. 
Such is Mac Connal's faith ; — he stirs not from that lone 

and simple heap. 
But sits him by the Dead, resolved a vigil sad to keep ; 
And shed those tears that Sorrow loves to shed unseen — 

alone, 
Or in the chamber of the . Dead or by the cold tomb- 
stone. 



158 THE DEATH-KISS. 

Tears blest by God as are tlie prayers of those " in secret 

heard" 
By Him, who, through his Son, said, He would " openly 

reward." 
Now wanes the night fast, yet MacConnal clings to that 

lonely spot ; 
Unheeding all around him ; — forgetting and forgot ; — 
He lists not to the night-wind, nor the echo that it 

bears 
To the darkened tale his bosom poui*s of agony and 

tears ; 
He scarcely knows he lives, but feels within a rankling 

pang 
That gnaws the Life-bloom from his heart like adder's 

venomed fang. 
" Oh, would to God that I were dead, dear Eveleen 1" 

he cried, 
" Would that, for thee, my bonny one, Mac Connal 

More had died ! 
For thou hast left a void within — around — where'er I see 
The heaven or earth — nay, the bright flowers that tell 

me. Sweet, of thee. 
We look not for the sun when clouds sweep o'er the 

stormy sky. 
Nor look we for a sunny glance when tears obscure the 
eye; 



THE DEATH-KISS. 159 

Nor, when the string is broken, dare we hope for one 

sweet tone 
Would give us back the memory of moments past and 

gone ! 
Vain — vain, dear Eveleen ! to hope thy form again to 

see ; — 
I shall pass to the cold grave, but thou'It ne'er return to 

me !" 
He flung himself upon the grave — raised up his voice 

and wept, 
And through the silent midnight deep a lonely watch he 

kept ; 
When lo ! a voice upon his ear — so heavenly sweet it 

came. 
The mourner almost thought he heard an angel in his 

dream ! 

" Dry — dry thy tears — there are others as fair 
As mortal eye hath seen ; 
With eyes as blue — as sunny hair 
As buried Eveleen. 

And their's the breath the flower breathes 

Out from its odorous cell, 
Their's the immortal hand that wreathes 

The bower where spirits dwell ! 



1 GO THE D E A T H - K I S S . 

Time lingers not with tliem, Ijiit flics 

On wings of light and mirth ; 
Refreshing with its touch the dyes 

That wither on your earth ! 

And day to day sweet music weaves 

Her chain of spirit-sound ; 
All-beautiful, as Summer-leaves 

Fling harmony around. 

Death is not there — we shed no tears 

For the reaper's fellen grain ; 
For spirits w^e are, whose wdngs, through years 

Eternal, never knew stain ! 

Then, away with me, my fair bridegroom ! 

To my home in yonder sky ; 
See — see, already I wing my plume 

For my homeward flight on high !" 

Is it a dream, or doth his ear drink in that spirit-sound, 
From the grave where lies his dead bride ? Still it 

pours its sweetness 'round. 
And 'round in many a mazy wind its harmony it 

flings, 
As eveninoj lends her echo to the sweet JEohan's strino's. 



THE DEATH-KISS. 161 

It is — it is triitli — not a dream, — for as he turns liis 

eyes 
Upward, he sees a maiden, lovely tenant of the skies-! 
Around her brow a halo hovers — bright celestial flame 
Of beauty, such as decked the angels when to earth they 

came, 
Won by her beauteous sons and daughters from their 

realms above, 
To give, for one hour's earthly bliss. Eternity of love — 
And a smile played 'round her vermeil hp, like that the 

man of sin 
Sees in his dreams, when angels welcome the repentant 

in;— 
While her eye, like morning-star, whose light by dew is 

half-concealed, 
Seemed as it could have wept a tear the eye-lid half- 
revealed ; — 
" And dost thou weep a buried faith, poor mortal that 

thou art ? 
And dost thou think the gnawing worm will spare the 

buried heart ? 
Canst thou re-lume the eye, whose light is quenched in 

the dark grave ? 
As well thou might'st go trace the Moon's bright kingdom 

in the wave ?" 
Oh ! they were tones of music, such as the wrapt spirit 

hears 



162 THE DEATH-KISS. 

In the lone midnight when holding commune with the 
starry spheres, 

When from star to star a language floats ; and, though 
the holy sound 

We hear not, yet we feel there is an angel-spell around — 

Silent and wrapt Mac Connal stands in deepest wonder- 
ment, 

Whether he stood in presence of a spirit heaven-sent — 

" Oh ! mock me not with visions bright of that blessed 
Land afar. 

Where the wicked cease from troubling and at rest the 
weary are ; 

And the blinded eye forgets its tear, and the broken 
heart its load. 

And the wretched turn from earth to seek their happiness 
in God ! 

Oh ! if it be to die, I pray now stretch thy hand and 
smite. 

And let my Eveleen and I together sleep to-night !" 

The spirit smiled and said : " Fair Youth ! my mission's 
not of Death ; 

I would not see one die so young, whose early-plighted 
foith, 

Like flower unblown hath scarcely tasted the sweet dew 
and light, 

Ere every leaf hath felt the canker-sting and Autumn- 
blight, 



THE DEATH-KISS. 163 

I would not see a faith so true as thine so early die, 

A faith entwined by all that's pure and strong in human 

tie ; 
I would not see it perish thus, or given to her who now 
Lies cold alike to Passion as she's deaf to its warm 

vow." 
" Yes — ^yes !" he cried, " I'd have it buried there beneath 

the pall — 
Yes, let it he there; — all I've felt — my faith — my 

passion — all !" 
She takes his hand — she breathes upon him — lo ! a 

change appears, 
A smile hghts up those eyes, but now suffused and dim 

with tears, 
As Morning's bursting sunshine its bright dawn of 

freshness sheds 
When flowers shake off the evening-dew and raise their 

drooping heads ; 
And, as her lips are pressed to his, a thrill darts through 

his frame. 
As Lava fills its fiery path with fierce volcanic flame. 
And his mind is filled with dreams so beautiful they 

seem of heaven. 
While his heart is braced with that strong faith to none 

but martyrs given ; — 
Oh ! is this passion — is it madness thus transports his 

brain, 



164 THE DEATH -KISS. 

Or is't a new Life coursing subtly thus through every 

vein, 
That fixes eye and soul in love and terror thus on her 
Who makes a lost and broken heart, like his, a 

worshipper ? 
Where is the faith but now he pledged to her who lies 

so low t 
Where are the tears — the promises — the unsealed bridal 

vow ? 
Forgotten /" " Pledge me, now," she said, " thy faith 

upon my hand. 
That, ere a month, thou'lt meet me here, Mac Connal, 

where we stand ; 
With a fiiith as pure and lasting, and a heart as strong 

and bold 
As thou swor'st to her whose ashes lie beneath us stark 

and cold !" 
" I swear — I swear !" the youth replied ; and, as he spake 

the word. 
An echo from the graves around, like music faint, was 

heard. 
And she was gone — -*¥:** 

'Tis midnight deep in the chieftain's hall, and midnight's 

deep repose 
Broods silently, where late the cheer of bridal mirth 

arose : 



THE DEATH-KISS. 165 

And warriors gather 'round to look their last upon the 

chief ; — 
Not as before, with eye of pride, but agony of grief ; 
For that spirit-kiss hath dried his blood, like grass 

beneath the sun, 
And an early grave doth yawn for him whose sands are 

nearly run ! 
" Dry uj) your tears," the dying said, " I'm passing to 

my doom ; 
No more you'll see my falchion flash — no more your 

Chieftain's plume 
Shall cheer ye 'gainst your foemen, where the thickest 

fight is seen ; — 
Farewell, my warriors ! lay me by my buried Eveleen ! 
In life I loved her — my last thought to her in life I 

gave ;— 
Let hearts, this world divided, be united in the grave !" 
He said — the dying Chieftain bowed his head upon his 

breast, 
Nor more can say, for the parting soul is speeding to its 

rest ; 
The eye is glazed — the hps grow wan, — and the pulse is 

ebbing slow. 
And the pallor of that death-kiss overspreadeth cheek 

and brow ; — 
Now mournfully the Banshee wails the chieftain dead 

and gone, 



166 THE DEATH-KISS. 

All sadly as the withered tree returns the midnight- 
moan ; 

And the silence of the death-room giveth answer mute 
and deep 

To those solemn notes that 'round the grave lull Death's 
eternal sleep, 

Like mystic messengers that rise from the chambers of 
the tomb, 

With tales of the forgotten Dead who sleep within its 
womb. 

And now once more at the castle-gate standeth the 
funeral-train ; 

And the castle-bell once more peals forth its dead and 
solemn strain ; — 

A month since on that spot there stood the funeral- 
cavalcade ; — 

A month since in the cold — cold earth, sweet Eveleen 
was laid ; 

A little month hath passed since tolled that castle-bell 
before, 

And now is heard the same sad peal for dead Mac Con- 
nal More ! 

The grave is dug by Eveleen's — the spot wherein he 
prayed 

His ashes might repose with her's — ^his heart by her's be 
♦ laid; 



THE DEATH-KISS. 167 

Meet resting-place for those whose stars in darkness have 

gone down, 
Whose harvests here on earth in tears and sorrow have 

been sown ; — 
Whose hearts, sustained alone through Life, by the 

cheering light of Faith, 
See their first sunrise in the hour that draws the veil of 

Death ! 
Now side by side they rest — the loved, the loving, and 

the dead ; 
The bridal, ^arth denied, fulfilled within that narrow 

bed;— 
And, as they throw the dust on both, a low and feai-ful 

sound, 
Half-tears — half-music rises from beneath the burial- 
ground ; 
" Thine oath is kept — I told thee that the gTeen sod 

and the stone 
Would be thy fate, Mac Connal ! ere a single month 

had gone /" 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 



171 



BELSHAZZAR. 

For seventy years had Israel worn the Chaldee's galling 

chain, 
And many an eye was wrung with grief, and heart was 

bowed with pain ; 
And tears of bitterness atoned the Temple's splendor 

gone, 
And Zion's hill, where God had placed the glories of his 

throne — 
Oh ! often by Euphrates' stream the mourning Hebrew 

strayed, 
Anon he woke the long-hushed harp — anon he wept and 

prayed ; 
But sullen echoes answered from Euphrates' gloomy 

waters, 
Echoes that mocked the heart-wrung grief of Jewry's sons 

and daughters. 
Sad echoes that recalled the days when Jehovah's mighty 

Hand, 
Guided them through the Red Sea waves all safe as on 

dry land, 
Reviving to the eye the darkened glories of Sinai, 



172 BELSHAZZAR. 

Rocked to its base beneath tbe burning tread of Adonai ; 

'Mid thunderings and lightnings gleaming on that God- 
writ stone, 

While the Prophet's face, as he descended, like a Glory- 
shone ; 

Echoes that brought back the land where milk and 
honey flowed, 

And Jordan's stream yet destined for the baptism of God, 

The conquered Hivite — Jebuzite ; and Gideon's — Joshua's 
sword. 

Cities and heroes prostrate by the might of Israel's Lord ; 

The bright Shechinah that once burned between the 
Cherubim 

For aye withdrawn by God ; its place once glorious, dark 
and dim ! 

Sad images were those that rose from echoes as they 
strayed, 

'Mong strings that lent the exile's harping Music's darkest 
shade ; 

Upon the willow hangs the harp, the minstrel can but weep 

At the sad notes that through the strings in fitful pauses 
sweep — 

"Shall the conquered sing the song of Zion in a 
stranger-land ? 

How can we sing the Lord's song at a conqueror's 
command ? 



BELSHAZZAR. 173 

Oh ! Babel's daughter ! happy he who in vengeance for 

our groans, 
Shall dash thy godless children down, aye — even to the 

stones !" 

Bright were the lamps that burned within Belshazzar's 
festal-hall, 

And cup and garland twined their blush at that high 
carnival ; 

And feasting and rejoicing all held high and impious 
sway. 

As though no night of judgment were to close that 
Godless day : 

The gold and silver vessels that the Temple of the Lord 

On Zion's hill adorned, decked now the heathen's festal- 
board, 

And feasting and Religion there had twined their fearful 
spell 

For they had given these holy vessels to their idol, Bel. 

" Bring forth those golden vessels I" cries the king, full- 
flushed with wine, 

" That my father bore in triumph from the Hebrews' 
gorgeous shrine ; 

And let us in their oivn bright gold and silver goblets 
drain 

Honor and glory to the hand that wove the Hebrews' 
chain !" 



174 BE LSH AZZ AR. 

Forth brought they then the vessels, and they fill them 

up with wine, 
And joyous echoes rang, as drank king, peer, and 

concubine. 
Forgetting not to mingle with the madness of that hour. 
Blasphemies on Jehovah's name, and insults to His 

power ; 
For they no longer deemed Him true in promise, act, or 

word 
Who gave his favored people to captivity and sword ! 
"Fill high, fill high — let every cup brim with its 

sparkling freight ! 
'Tis not for kings to crouch, like men, at word of Death 

or Fate — 
Kings are immortal — " While thus spake a flattering 

lord, behold ! 
A dazzling light, like rainbow, fell around those cups of 

gold; 
And fear and trembhng fell on all, and the speaker stood 

like one 
God's long-staid hand in judgment smote to semblance 

as of stone ; 
For his jewelled fingers pointed, and his eyes they shone 

hke glass. 
When wizard-wand makes spectre-forms in silence o'er it 



BELSHAZZAR. l76 

They looked, and lo ! upon the wall the finger of a man 
Traced mystic lines that human eye that night might 

never scan, 
" Over against the candle-stick," upon the palace-wall, 
Belshazzar saw the part that wrote, hut did not see it all ; 
Then troubled were his thoughts, and lo ! how pale his 

visage grew, 
As on the marble monument ye see Death's pallid hue ; 
Wailing and moaning rest upon that festive groupe, 

where now 
Joy thrilled on every lip, and pleasure lighted every 

brow ; 
The wine no longer sparkles, and the cups untasted 

stand, 
While fixed as marble's every eye upon that cloudy 

hand; 
Muffled in mantle every face — bowed every knee in 

prayer, 
Such prayer as doomed souls mutter — half in fear and 

half despair, 
While an icy chillness rests on all, as though they feel 

the breath 
Of one whose home, though now on earth, was in the 

Land of Death ! 
Then started from his trance the king, and gazed upon 

the crowd, 



176 BELSHAZZAK. 

That seemed not guests — but worshippers, for every 

knee was bowed; 
xVnd, as he saw the palsied hand, and the Hp spell-bound 

with fear, 
His stubborn knees, they almost bend, for lie felt that 

God was near ; — 
Then spake he : — " Call the Magi ! Let Chaldea's seers 

declare 
The mystery of good or ill a God hath written there ; 
And he that shall the tidings of that writing dark 

unfold. 
With scarlet shall be clothed, and wear a chain of 

massive gold !" 
Lo ! entered then, the Magi ; while the anxious eyes of 

all 
Passed quickly from the Soothsayers to the writing on 

the wall, 
Both lip and cheek were bloodless, and chill terror held 

the breath 
Of each one, as he paused to hear a message as from 

Death ! 
Long space the Magi strove to disentwine the mystic 

chain 
That bound those words from human eye ; but all their 

lore was vain — 
Now heavier shadows fell upon Belshazzar's Hvid face, 



BELSHAZZAR. 177 

Shadows of fear and pain that in the dying you may 

trace ; 
His Hps, they muttered half in prayer, with hands, like 

iron, bound 
In prayer's convulsive grasp, he looked in agony 

around ; — 
It was the wrung and anguished speech that silence 

more than tells. 
For in its muteness, as a shrine, the soul's deep suffering 

dwells ! 
As thus they stood, King, peer, and concubine, like those 

within 
The cities of the plain, awaiting the dread doom of sin, 
The Queen, with voice like spirit blessed, the grave-like 

silence brake ; 
" Oh, King ! for ever hve and from tbis trance awake — 

awake ! 
Let not thy thoughts, thus, trouble thee, nor Sorrow 

fling her veil 
Athwart thy brow, like Mourning, o'er the dead one cold 

and pale ; — 
For lo ! there's one, my Son ! within thy kingdom who 

can read 
All mysteries that Bel and Nebo on Belshazzar have 

decreed, 
ne whom thy father master made of all Chaldea's seers, 
8* 



178 BELSHAZZAR. 

For in him the spirit of the gods, like Wisdom's self, 

appears ! 
Let Belteshazzar now be called, and he will straightway 

show 
What means this mystic messenger that makes thee 

tremble now ?" 
Then was Daniel brought before the King; and thus 

Belshazzar said : — 
" Speak ! art thou of those conquered tribes my father 

captive led 
In years by-gone, from Jewry ?" " Lo ! thy servant is thy 

slave ; — 
What can a captive give, oh King! his Conqueror 

would have ?" 
The King spake not : but raised his quivering finger 

where the hand 
Stood still and misty, hke a herald from a dim and 

distant land ; — 
E'en such a herald heaven might send, 'mid pestilence 

and war. 
To open long-closed phials from some dark, malignant 

star, 
When nations veil the heart — no longer clouds of incense 

rise, 
And the sun looks too weak and wan to light the 

morning-skies ! 



BELSHAZZAR. l79 

But Daniel gazed unblencbing, for his trust was in his 

God, 
Whether amid the furnace-flames, or hons' den he trod ; 
For martyr-like baptized in flames was Daniel's holy 

faith. 
And purged with flames he stood, and wore the martyr's 

holy wreath ! 
" Oh King ! our God most High and Mighty, gave thy 

father's crown 
The choicest gifts of Heaven — glory, honor, and renown, 
And with thy Sire, where'er he went, were majesty and 

awe, 
His very frown was conquest, and his iron will was law ! 
All nations and all languages, they feared and trembled 

too, 
For whom he would, he spared alive, and whom he 

would he slew ! 
But when, in self-reliance, he forgat his trust in God, 
And in very pride his head was raised above the earth 

he trod, 
When in self-glory of the flesh his pride was lifted up, 
Then did God's long-staid hand first mingle tears within 

his cup ; — 
Yes, shame and sorrow were thy Sire's, when from the 

haunts of men 
Sent forth to seek a home, he found it in the wild beasts' 

den, 



180 BELSHAZZAK. 

And with the oxen, he ute grass — with clew he quenched 

his thirst ; — 
And thy Sire, oh King ! to herd with beasts, was for 

his pride accurst! 
Now mark what I areed thee, King ! thy father's crime 

is thine, 
Thy soul is lifted up against the Majesty Divine ; 
Of old the angels forfeited their high estate for pride, 
Look round thee, King ! and say hast thou not God 

thyself defied ? 
What see I here, amid these gold and silver vessels 

piled, 
But God himself insulted, and His Holy Shrine 

despoiled ? 
What see I here, amid these cups of silver and of gold, 
But King and Victor both his proud and swelling heart 

unfold ? 
What see T, amid revelry, and song, and dance, and 

wine, 
Save blasphemy on those things God Himself hath made 

Divine ? 
And now, oh King ! prepare thee in this last and fearful 

hour 
To read a message in yon' hand from God's insulted 

power !" 
He said : but, ere the holy herald had his mission given 



BELSH AZZ AR. 181 

Behold around a radiance, as though each world in 

heaven 
Had registered that moment with its own immortal light, 
Ere Babylon for ever sank to ruin and to night ! 
And, 'mid that glory radiant as from God's own beaming 

throne, 
Lo ! these the words that met the glassy eye of every 

one : — 
" Mene-Mene-Tekel-Upharsin " traced in living light, 
As was, in Israel's wanderings, the pillared fire by night. 
Now ev'ry eye on Daniel's turned, from Monarch to the 

seer, 
But ev'ry hp hangs questionless, so palsied 'tis with fear ; 
And those cheeks, whose blush but now outvied the 

wine within the gold ; — 
God ! are they spectres now that stand — so wan they 

look and cold ! 
'Twas then that Daniel spake — "Beware! Chaldea's 

hour is come ; 
In yonder writing. King and people ! read Chaldea's 

doom ; 
Thyself and kingdom, guilty King ! are in the balance 

weighed. 
But wanting found, and given to the Persian and the 

Mede !" 
E'en while he spake, a trumpet-blast rang on the 

midnight-air ; 



182 BELSIIAZZAR. 

Oil ! then within those guilty walls were wailing and 

despair, 
And gnashing teeth— and smitten breasts — and curses — 

prayers — and cries, 
Such as from Hinnom's bloody vale, and Tophet's depths 

arise, 
When parents, with their own hands, give their strangled 

babes to Bel, 
That ev'n Religion's self hath made her shrine and vale 

a mil/* 

Another blast — another — is the right arm of the Lord 

Uplifted thus, in wrath so soon to verify His Word ? 

Fall in the dust, proud Babylon ! Call on the rocks to 
hide 

Thy lazar-house of guilt and sin — thy leprosy of pride ; 

Where are the gods, Belshazzar ! now, that girded once 
thy throne ? 

Vain, vain to summon to thine aid those blocks of wood 
and stone, 

Bel croucheth — Nebo stoopeth, and their shrines are 
broken down, 

For hark ! the True God cometh now, with sceptre and 
with crown, 

Comes on the midnight-storm's dark wing with trumpet- 
blast, and sword, — 

* Gehenna, the Greek for Hinnom. 



BELSHAZZAR. 183 

Bow down, thou kingly worm ! bow at the footstool of 

thy Lord — 
Comes to accomplish His dread wrath in ages past 

decreed, 
Give place, ye king and people, to the Persian and the 

Mede ! 



THE SEA 



Oh glorious Sea — Thou fine old Sea, 
Nurse of Death and Mystery ! 
How many a legend solemn and old 
Could thine azure page unfold, 
From the dawn of the world, 

When first the heave 

Of the torpid wave 
"Was to Life unfurled, 
When the first storm from God came sweeping down 
Dark mirror of its Master's frown. 

Bursting the chain 

That bound the main. 
Flung there by Chaos' old and trembling hand, 
To part thy wild dominion from the Land. 



184 THE SEA. 

Mother of terrors dark and deep, 

How many in thy pulseless bosom sleep ; 

Sons and daughters, 

Each earthly tie 

Rocked by thy waters 
For ever in Death's songless lullaby ! 
Mother of terrors ! when arise thy waves 
In yesty triumph o'er the swelling tide ; 
Clapping their hands like liberated slaves, 
Who've dashed but now their manacles aside, 

In that dark hour 

Of demon-power. 
How they climb the strong bark, 
Prow and stern and shroud. 
Rising and sinking, like the Ark 
Upon the mighty Flood ; 
Still up the waves in deadly phalanx climb, 
As armed hosts in battle-time 

Besiege a town ; — 
Rending — scattering mast and sail 

'Mid shriek and wail, 
The last prayer answered by the sky's dark frown. 

And now thou liest in slumber mild, 
Tranquilly as a little child. 

Whose breathing's scarcely heard, 



THE SEA. 186 

Like summer-wind that plays the trees among, 

Their mazy bowers twined 

With the bright wreaths of Angel-song ; 
Oh ! strange 
The change ; 
Thy waves no longer now in masses piled, 
Like ensigns after battle — torn — despoiled, 
But now thy gentle ripples play 
Into the sunshine far away. 
And over thine azure floor they dance. 
Meeting and parting in each sunny glance. 
Like the sweet bridal of Music and Light 
In the beam of the Moon on a calm Summer-night ; 

Oh ! how subdued ; 

No Summer could 
Breathe deeper calmness over Tropic isles 
Than thou, Old Ocean ! with thy countless smiles. 

Rich are Earth's mines ; with thee no measure 
Can count thy hoards of sunken treasure, 

From the first hour Phoenicia broke 
The strong tyrannic yoke 
Of earth that fettered human hearts and minds ; 

The hour when the first timid oar 
Trembled amid the waters, fai* from shore, 
Startling the Deep 
From its centuried sleep ; 



186 THESEA. 

Guiding the wanderers safe 'mid waves and winds — 
Aye, from that hour thy womb hath been 

The treasure-house of all the earth hath seen 

Of rich and beautiful from India's shores, 
Where far Cathay 
Hives golden stores, 

E'en to the regions of the closing Day, 

Where Spanish Avarice sought her piles 
Of gold 'mid India's balmy isles ; 

Peruvian gold — the gems of Giamschid, 

Yea, the wealth of worlds beneath thy miser-waves is hid ! 

But what the wealth thou'st garnered, as thy spoil. 
To the vast human pile 
Have made their graves 
In thine undug, yet ever-yawning tomb — thy waves ; 
Thou hast them there — the Dead, 
Each in his mould'ring bed ; 
And thou canst well to Death reply, 
As through the world his venomed arrows fly — 
" I am the conqueror — behold my slaves ! " 
What ! could not one suffice 
In God's own image made, 
For thy relentless sacrifice, 
With groans and smothered supphcations paid ? 



THE SEA. 187 

No — no — for countless cries, 
'Mid death-wrung tears, 
Have struck the skies 
Eternal through the zodiac of thy years : 
And world on world 
Of beating hearts and weeping eyes 

Thy tempests have hurled 
Down — down from the light of the skies. 
Oh ! when thou risest in thy mountain-might. 
Pity within thy depths seeks endless Night ! 

There is scarcely on earth a single spot 

By the loving and living forgot, 
A spot where weeping Friendship cannot find 
Those memories dear the Dead have left behind, 
The smile — the tear — the kind and gentle word 
Kindling the soul-lit eye, or ere 'twas heard. 

The music of the voice 

Making the heart rejoice, 
"Waking to happiness its hidden springs. 

As when the Angel came 

With heahng on his wings 
To cheer the broken-hearted— rheal the blind and lame ; 
Oh ! sweet the memories ; sweeter far the tears 
When on her bosom the green mound appears. 

Piled by Affection's hand, 

To those of the Spirit-Land, 



188 THE SEA. 

And decked with flowers that seem to love the Dead 
Li the bright hues 
That Spring renews, 
And fragrance that they cluster 'round their bed ! 
But where upon thy waters can we read 
One single trace of the sepulchred Dead ; 
A single hue 

The heart might make its shrine — 
The treasury of all on earth was dear, 
The joy — the hope — the smile — affection — tear. 
Oh ! thine is a dreary waste 
Where human eye ne'er traced 
One single mark of those for ever gone, 
E'en as the ancient dead o'er stagnant Acheron ! 
Where — where is their epitaph ? 
Hear it in the rattling thunder's laugh. 

As, with shock and boom 
It bursts the chain of its caverned home. 

Like the trump of Doom 
Crumbling the glassy portals of thy tomb ! 
Read it in the lightnings' glare 
Over thy heaving bosom bare. 
When from heaven they flash and fall, 
Like flickering torches at the burial — 
This — this the epitaph thou writ'st for all. 
While Earth above her dead spreadeth her flowery pall 



THE SEA. 189 

Year upon year thine azure floor 
Was imwhitened by sail — unrippled by oar ; 
And the tempests kept 
Their wild dominion, 
And the sea-bird swept 
On his storm-beat pinion 
Round and away far off from the shore 
It had loved for its home and clung to before ; 
These were the lords upon thy crystal throne : — 
Till old Phcenice, 
Like the Argonaut 
Whose daring sought 
The golden fleece, 
Launched first upon thy waters, fearless and alone ! 
Alone through unknown seas, 
Even to the Cassiterides, 
By night and by day 
She pHed her venturous way, 
Sweeping around 
The ancient bound 
Where Hercules' unwearied hand 
Had piled his columns near Iberia's land ; 
Nor yet her daring sail had furled 
Until she saw old Baratanach's* Western world ! 

* The ancient name of Britain, signifying "The land of tin." 



190 THE SEA. 

Thou bor'st upon thy mother-breast 
Columbus, when he sought the uncertain West, 
And, as he marked the Mne of sinking day, 
Deemed it was old Cathay, 
The golden Chersonese, 
That El Dorado of the Indian Seas ! 
Oh ! strong the faith, thou mighty man ! that bore 
Thee o'er the trackless waves to India's shore ; 
And base the meed that kingly favor gave 
Thy lofty soul, thou Gideon of the wave ! 
What ! had the wealth and chivalry of Spain 
No fitter gift for thee, than felon's chain ? 
"Qnawed thine eye ranged o'er the waves, thy hand 
Unlocked the long-barred portals of an unknown land ; 
Thou, hke the ancient Patriarch who trod 
The Red Sea waters, parted by his God, 
Didst place thy trust, unwavering, in Him, 
And saw'st by faith, the land, though dark and dim ; 
Oh ! holy mother ! — reverence to thee, 
For that, to distant shores 
Where the broad Atlantic pours 
Her myriad waters, fetterless and free, 
Thou led'st the way. 
Thyself the glorious path. 
To that bright, halcyon-day, 
Where tyranny and wrath 



THE SKA. 191 

Of kings and despots should for ever pass away 

Before the dawn of Liberty ! 
Yes ! on the shores of thy far Western wave 
Man hath disowned the shackles of the slave ; 
And, as he sees thy giant-waters roll, 
Feels Freedom's echo answer from his soul : — 
" Look on those waters of Eternity I 

No kingly chain 

E'er bound the main, 

Man 1 like it, be fi-ee T' 

But scarce had Commerce spread her Virgin-sail 

Ere thine azure brow grew pale ; 

When war and proud ambition came 

Like pestilential hurricane, 

Kindling their desolating flame 
That sent its charnel-hght athwart the startled main ; 
And thy waves that rolled 
Their crests of gold 
Free as the storms that rose and died. 

Were now to feel 

And hear the echo of groan and steel 
Wake from their dreams eterne the slumbers of thy tide. 

Impurpled with blood 

Thou hast been of the brave, 

E'en like the mountain-flood 

That bore on its wave 



192 THE SEA. 

Adonis' life-drops oozing from the wound ; 
While beneath and around 
Thy caverned deeps dread echo gave 
From the myriad-voiced wave, 
As it leaped and roared 
At the mighty word 
That Battle gave its phalanxed horde ! 
Oh ! fearful the cries thy tortured waves have sent 
Age upon age to the firmament, 
When first Ambition wove her chain 
For the free unmastered main 
That never yet knew lord save the great hurricane. 
Yes, Greece' and Carthage's, Piome's — Persia's prow 
Have broken the glassy stillness of thy brow, 
And spear and falchion — tattered ensign — shield, 
Have writ War's blazonry upon thine azure field, 
While the eternal anthem of thy waves 
Hath been the only knell of Nation's graves. 
Bearing each brave, each good man's name on high 
To win the soldier's immortality ! 

There, where the waves Saronic kiss 
That glorious old isle, Salamis, 

At Mycale, by sweet Ionia's shore. 
The Greek and Persian have 
Polluted thy bright wave 
With other streams than thine, even human gore — 



THE SEA. 193 

Oh ! Ancient Mother, e'en for centuries past 
Man over thee Ambition's curse hath cast, 
And, 'sdaining earth, sought to subdue thy tiood 
Where Freedom's tower hath for ages stood, 
Aye, beaten by tempest, by the Hghtning riven, 
But still her pinnacle erect to heaven. 

Yet here proud man upon thy barren plain 
From East to West hath spread his wide domain, 
Passed with the sun ; nor doth Ambition rest 
Until her weary wing be folded in the West ; — 
There's not a wave of thine unstained by war 
From Grecian Salamis to Trafalgar ! 

'Tis morn — the sky is cloudless and serene, 
And Nature's smile is radiant as her face. 
While on thy liquid meadows of green 

The waves they play 

In the new-born ray. 
Like nymphs unzoned in Ocean's wild embrace. 
But see ! what glides along th' horizon's rim ? 

Is it a cloud 

Hanging its golden shroud 

'Twixt sea and sky ? 
No — no — it is a vessel — gallant — trim. 
And 'round her the waves chaunt merrily, — 
GUde on, thou creature of Life — oh ! ghde — 
9 



194 THE SEA. 

O'er thee tlie tempest and cloud have no power ; 
Old Ocean claims thee for liis beautiful bride, 
And scatters around thee his diamonds for dower ; 
Oh ! many the eyes that wept, as thy form 
Melted to nothingness far from the shore ; 
And the hearts that consigned thee to cloud and to storm. 
Were mingled with fears ye might meet never more ; 
Ride on — thou beautiful vision ! ride ! 
Hushed be the storm, and smooth be the tide 

That beai-s thee along 

To the choral song 
Of wind and wave in musical throng — 

A change hath come — for, lowering — black — 

Hangs the Tv^ld heaven, 

While floats the rack, 
Like volumed wreaths of bursting leven, 
When giants old in battailous array 
Marshalled the combat fierce in upper day. 
Oh ! what a change — the sky's ablaze, 

As though the sun 
Had poured on this the light of a thousand days 
From the depths of his burning throne ; — 

And the thunders roll. 

And the ocean it reels 

As though from pole to pole 
God hurled his anger from the broken seals ! 



T HE W OD S . 195 

Still gloriously she rides the mighty wave ; 
The mistress — she, and it — the slave ! 

No strength can 'bide the conflict ; — fragile — vain 

As gossamer, she struggles with the main ; 

There's not a blast that whistles through her shrouds, 

There's not a flash that lights the fissured clouds. 

And not a wave upon her shattered side 

But leaves some fragment weltering on the tide ; — 

The lightnings pour 
Their red mantle 'round thee ; — oh ! never more 
Shalt thou, returning, hail the friendly shore ; — 
A moment more — her timbers part — she's gone — 
And ocean closes over her with hollow moan ! 



THE WOODS. 

Hail, old woods ! — Primaeval woods ! 

Nature's holy solitudes. 
From age to age, Religion's everlasting pile ! 
Deep in your midst she's raised her vast abode. 
Her Temple roofed and arched by God, 
And solemnly lighted like cathedral-aisle — 
I never hear your clustered branches stirred 



196 THE WOODS. 

By the hushed anthem of the suinmer-wirid, 

But call to mind 
The solemn hour Jehovah's voice was heard 

Passing from tree to tree, 
As glides the organ's grand solemnity, — 
Summer's bright blush from earth took instant flight, 
And Autumn threw around her yellow robe of blight ! 

Altar and Temple, both in one — all hail ! 
The sun on ye, like incense, pours his light. 
And clouds, in passing, weave that holy veil, 
That screens your inmost shi-ine from mortal sight ; 
Ages have past ; — and human eyes 
Have closed in their eternal sleep ; 
Yet ne'er hath one beheld those mysteries. 
Like sacred rites, locked in your bosom deep ; — 
But, like the Ark of Cov'nant, that within 
Preserved the Record dark of human sin, 

The Law, the Manna, and the Rod, 
The proofs and miracles of Israel's God, 
Age upon age, ye've shut from mortal eye. 
The phantom-secrets that within ye lie ! 

Rend, Old Time ! the veil. 
And let the hoary past recount her solemn tale — 

Methinks I see the Druid move 
Beneath the broad and Patriarchal oak ; 



THE WOODS. 197 

His incantations mystic through the grove 
Re-echoing Rome's tierce battle-cry, tliat broke 

Through Britain's unknown isle ; 
Aghast the Roman looked on the uncouth pile 

That Superstition reared, 

For nought to him appeared 

Save stone in circle rude. 
Far — far from that unholy Solitude, 

Fancy, upon her gilded track. 

Wandered to Rome from Britain back, 
And viewed with lordly pride the hallowed shrine 
Great Rome had reared to Jove Capitoline ! 

Antiquity sits throned upon the Pyramid ! 

Assyria, Egypt, Carthage, all are gone ; 

Time, in his watchful flight, hath closed his lid 

On nations, as they crumbled stone by stone, 

And temples, with their gods, have perished too, 

Their gods of wood and stone 

Gone hke a drop of morning-dew 

That lingers on a leaf — the last — alone ! 

Nation and Temple — all a shadowy pile. 

Like storied effigy in Cathedral-aisle, 

Where we vainly seek to trace 

The hneament of the buried face, 

Or the obliterated line 

Affection writes upon her mournful shrine ; — 



198 THE WOODS. 

Aye, in History's old and calcined page 
We read of the by-gone age, 
Of the king, and the battle, and sword, 
The Hero's death and the Patriot's word. 
Of nations subdued, and nations freed. 
While, mid the death-charge, heroes bleed. 
And young Ambition builds her throne 
Where Bondage utters her last groan ; 

Earth's deeds are writ by human hand ; — 

But luho hath penned the history 
Of the countless ages that have swept your land ? 
Go — read it in the buried heaps that lie 
Of mouldered trunks, and leaves that fall. 
The bridal-robe of Nature and her pall ! 
Nature herself hath penned the classic page. 
Each sapless leaf, a volume — Life's sad pilgrimage ! 

The Muse of Greece hath wandered ye among. 
Braiding your antique shrines with wreaths of song ; 
And old Mythology hath waved her wand 
Amid the silent depths of forest-land. 
And called her children round her, Fancy's fays. 
To sport their phantom-life through Summer's dreamy 
days — 
Dryads and Hamadryads both are yours, 
Gods of your bright and fadeless bowers ; — 
Gods, at whose shrine 



THE WOODS. 199 

The Greek, while he knelt, 
Knew that Spirit divine, 

Whose effluence can subdue and melt 

The heart, however hard and cold, 
E'en to the soft impress of Nature's kindly mould ; 
Till forth Religion poured her holy streams 
Girding Creation as with sacred zone ; 
On mountain — vale — where'r the Loxian's* beams 
Fall — there her Spirit reared her golden throne ; 
Nature from every stream gushed forth in song. 
And echo sought her gladness to prolong ; 
All earth became Religion's bright abode. 
And mount and vale were vocal with their God ! 

We ask not History to reveal 
The ashy record of your buried prime, 
Nor grim Antiquity to set her seal 
Upon your glories spared to us by Time ; 
Ye are your own Historians ; and ye tell 
Where flashed the bolt that laid yon' giant low, 
What time the reeling lightning fell. 
Leaving its brand eternal on his hoary brow — 
We pause before the trunk — shrivelled and bare 
It lies, where it hath lain for ages past ; 
Its fellows shroud it with their drooping hair, 

* " Apollo — Squint-eyed,"— The Greek denoting the ambiguity of his 
oracles. 



200 THE WOODS. 

Like battle-torn banners in the blast ; — 
The leaves — oh ! where are they ? 
Ye tread the soil 
Where old Decay 
Hath piled his autumn-spoil — 
In every trunk — in every leaf we trace 
Nature's own History, — Time cannot all efface. 

How softly rests the sun upon ye now ; 
As thouo;h all Heaven were open to the view, 
And its bright Hierarchy showered below 
From 'neath their waving wings of golden hue 
All hght, they borrowed from the Eternal throne, 

When veiled before their God they stand, 

Each casting down his burning zone, 
The fadeless starlight of that Better Land ! 

Lo ! silence everywhere 
Pillowed on downy waves of sleeping air ; — 

Silence, such as swayed 
Creation, when God sent his Fiat forth 
Commandino; Liarht to be, and Lio-ht was made, 
While guilty Darkness fled the face of Earth ! 
Hail, holy Summer ! Sabbath of the skies ! 
Flowers weave thy robe and Beauty holds thy train, 
Heaven tesselates thy path with fadeless dyes, 
And weaves thy chaplet bright of golden grain — 



THE WOODS. 201 

Thy locks are braided with the dew, 

And clasped thy zone with flowers of brightest hue ! 

AVhat spirit moves within your holy shrine ? 

'Tis Spring — the year's young bride, that gladly pours 

Above — around — an effluence Divine 

Of light and life, falling in golden showers — 

And with her come the sportive nymphs in dance 

Like waves that gambol in the Summer's glance, 

Untwining bowers from their Winter's sleep, 

Unlocking rivers from their fountains deep. 

Tinting the leaf with verdure, that had lain 

Long-hid, like gold within the torpid grain, 

Chaunting her choral song, as Nature's eyes 

First greet the bridal of the earth and skies. 

The Spring is past ; — and blushing Summer comes. 
Music and sunshine throng her scented way ; 
The birds send gladly from their bowered homes, 
Their ptean at the birth of flowery May ! 
From close to shut of Day ; yes, far and near 
The spell of mystic music chains the ear ; 
All Nature, from her bosom pouring forth 
Sounds such as make a Temple of the earth, 
Returns in one full stream of harmony 
The angel-echoes that she hears on high — 
10 



202 THE WOODS. 

Beautiful Summer ! fling thy crown of flowers 
O'er this dull earth through winter's weary hours ; 
Let them not fade — oh ! let not sere and blight 
Darken thy prism'd couch with shade of Night ; 
Let not thy music ever break its spell, 
Like heaven-bound pilgrim bidding earth " Farewell !" 
Oh ! silence not thy music, — let thy flowers 
Be earth's bright stars responding to the skies ; 
Wreathing her graves with those immortal bowers 
Thy rosy hand 'twined 'round the Dead in Paradise ! 

Oh ! not a vision here but it must pass 
Like our own image from Life's spectre-glass , 
Summer is faded, and the Autumn sere 
Gathers the fallen leaves upon her bier, 
And, like the venomed breath of the Simoom 
That turns Zahara's desert to a tomb, 
Breathes on the buried Summer's shrined abode, 
And leaves a spectre what she found — a God ! 
'Tis thus, ye woods ! your melancholy tale 
Hath more of Truth than rose and lily pale, 
When the bright glories of the summer vie 
To make the earth a mirror of the sky. 
In Autumn's time-worn volume do we read 
The sacred moral — All things earthly fade ; 
And trace upon the page of every leaf 
That first and latest human lesson — grief! 



THE WOODS. 203 

But bark ! that dreary blast tbat rolls 
Like beart-wrung wailings of unburied souls, 
'Tis the winter's breath 
That comes from the land of Death 
Where the Arctic fetters the main ; 
Like the lightning it darts 
When its meteor parts 
And dissolves, like the cloud in rain ; 
And now pale Winter cometh frore 
From the dark North's drear and lifeless shore ; 
And round his form, trembling and old, 
Hangs his snow-robe in drifting fold. 
As that ye see on the mountain-height. 
Like Death asleep in the calm moonlight — ■ 
His diadem gleams with the icicle bright. 
And his sceptre of ice to destroy and to smite ; 
Like a monarch he sweeps from the mount to the vale, 
In his chariot that glistens with hoar-frost and hail ; 
His palace the iceberg adorned with spars. 
Like a wandering heaven all fretted with stars. 

Temples of eldest Nature, fare-ye-well ! 
Cathedrals God-made ! ye whose incense streams, 

Like Adoration's Soul 
At sound of matin or of vesper-bell, 
When choiring harmonies roll 

'Mid the oro-an's swell, 



204 NAPOLEON. 

And Heaven reveals itself to Worship's dreams — 
Farewell ! ye Temples, pil'd and arch'd by Him 
Whose praise for aye shall echo 'mid your tracery dim, 

Not dark ; for while the Sun looks down, 

Image of God's fadeless crown, 
Or, while the holy Moon 
Lights up her cresset for the midnight-noon. 
Upon your shrines shall burn that holy ray. 
Earth's foretaste of a distant — endless day ! 
Holy of Holies ! bar'd to Man, adieu ! 
When Nature consecrates the heart — that heart's with 
You! 



NAPOLEON. 

'Till rose thy star we did but deem 
The ancient day a mythic story ; 
Ambition's self an idle dream 
Emblazoned by the hand of Glory ! 
Vainly we trace the classic page, 
Of Greece and Rome, to find but one 
As gloriously that stamped his age. 
As thou. Napoleon, didst thine own ; 
And though thy reign be Vision now, 
The laurels still are fadeless on thy brow ! 

Thou taught'st mankind to break the chain 
That bound the soul for ages long' ; 



NAPOLEON. 205 

" Tlie Right Divine " of kings to reign, 
And lash, hke beasts, the herclHke throng ; 
Thy Right Divine was that of Mind, 
The only Right that God e'er gave 
To conquer nations, or to bind 
With fetters down the willing slave ; 
Thy sword thy sceptre ; Mind thy throne ; 
Plebeian — Emperor — thou stand'st alone ! 

We rank thee not with kings by hirth^ 
Those craven wretches who have made 
A wilderness of God's fair earth, 
And lust and tyranny a trade ; 
But with the mighty — men who build 
Their thrones in human hearts and minds — 
Thrones that, though shaken, never yield 
To Time's dark, sweeping waves and winds ; 
A cloud may drive across the plains, 
The mountain disappear, — it still remains ! 

Successor of proud Charlemagne, 
Who wor'st the Lombard's iron crown, 
Whose eagles over Europe's plain 
Trampled her dotard monarchs down, 
Down to thy footstool ; thou wert born 
To harness nations to thy car. 
Make gilded majesty a scorn 
To one whose only Right was war — 



200 NAPOLEON. 

Is it a dream, so quickly past, 
And is the star thou trustedst, set at last ? 

How oft doth History consecrate 
The imbecile — the kingly shade, 
With the vain — vaunting title — " Great ;" 
Flattering where she should upbraid ! 
But when she calls thee great, we know 
She flatters not, for there we see 
Graven upon thy kingly brow, 
The characters of majesty — 
Not crowns make kings, but God's own hand 
Moulds mind and soul to conquer and command. 

Bravely they fought at Marathon, 
And proudly too Themistocles 
Wore the bright trophies that he won 
As master of the Grecian seas ; 
But these were solitary stars, 
That rose, and sank ere full in view, 
And not the undying blaze thy wars, 
From Areola to Waterloo, 
Enkindled ; making earth a pile, 
Monarchs thy captives, and a world thy spoil ! 

Vainly we give the title — " Great " 
To him of conquering Macedon ; 
Birth gave him that thou didst create, 
Inheriting what thon hast won — 



I 



NArOLEON. 207 

Kingdom and host thou calledst forth, 

And, hke the fable tliat we read, 

Thou stamp'dst thine iron foot to earth 

And armies rose beneath thy tread — 

Creator ! oh, couldst thou not save 

One Httle fragment from thy kingdom's grave ? 

What ! of an empire vast that knew 

No bounds save those Ambition gave, 

That spread w^here'er her eagles flew 

From Spain even to Egypt's wave. 

Is there not one, but one of all 

Wrought by thy monumental mind. 

That, like the sun, or ere he fall. 

Might leave some trace of light behind ? 

Oh ! mockery, to think of Fame, 

When only mould'ring Memory holds thy name ? 

It was thy pride t'have raised amid 

The Desert of the World, a throne 

Might have outhved the Pyramid, 

And laughed to scorn proud Babylon ; — 

But these remain, and where art thou ? 

Aye there, upon that rocky isle, 

A crown of dust upon thy brow, 

And Nations for thy funeral-pile ! 

Sun of Battle — Conqueror — King ! 

Shall Matter last, and Mind for aye take wing ? 



208 NAPOLEON. 

Where'er thy banners were unfurled, 
"Wherever charged thy battled might, 
Thine eagles seemed to grasp a world 
And image, in their meteor-flight, 
The mighty mind whose soarings lent 
Them wings to shadow earth and heaven, 
What time the darkened firmament 
Reeled to the shock of battle's leven. 
Shrouding in gloom, all stars, save one, 
Thy Star of Destiny — Napoleon ! 

Old History, as she looks adown 

The crumbling heights of human Glory, 

Chaunting o'er sceptre and o'er crown 

Her Requiem sad — " Memento Mori !" 

Writing in characters of Dust 

The Chief of many a battle-field, 

Letting his sword inglorious rust. 

The sceptre, falchion, and the shield. 

Hangs thine within her armory 

Bright emblems of a namp can never die ! 



THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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